Subject: Recurrence rule clarification

From: [email-masked]
Date: Thu, 1 Jun 2000 15:22:07 -0400

In banging my head against the monitor trying to totally absorb the 
nuances of a full recurrence rule engine and parsing I think I ran across 
a slight discrepancy in the description of the recurrence rule data type. 
In particular:

4.3.10 Recurrence Rule
...
   Description: If the property permits, multiple "recur" values are
   specified by a COMMA character (US-ASCII decimal 44) separated list
   of values. [Snip, snip, snip]               The rule parts are not
   ordered in any particular sequence. Individual rule parts MUST only
   be specified once.

  The first line says that multiple recurrence rules on a single property 
that takes this data type can be separated by commas.  However this would 
be totally unparsable hence we put in that last line.  Just how 
would/should a parser deal with something like:

        RRULE:FREQ=Daily,COUNT=5,BYDAY=MO,FREQ=Weekly,BYDAY=FR

  The fix for this is quite simple: remove the first sentence of the 
description and replace it with:

   Description: Multiple "recur" values are not permitted on any property.

  If there are no amendments or objections Id propose that it get added to 
the list of 2445 updates that Frank is maintaining...

Bruce
===========================================================================
Bruce Kahn                                INet: [email-masked]
Iris Associates                          Phone: 978.392.5335
Westford, MA, USA 01886                    FAX: and nothing but the FAX...
Standard disclaimers apply, even where prohibited by law...

---

From: Eric Busboom <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 1 Jun 2000 14:28:12 -0700 (PDT)

> a slight discrepancy in the description of the recurrence rule data type. 

Ah... it is good to know that I am not suffering alone...

> be totally unparsable hence we put in that last line.  Just how 

Well, it isn't unparsable, but it is not pretty. My code that splits
values based on commas has a special case for recur: it is a value
separating comma only if it is followed by "FREQ." Since "FREQ" must be
the first thing in a rrule ( contrary to some RFC2446 examples ) this
should always work. 

But, this is a is horribly ugly hack. I'd like to second Bruce's request
to make RECUR values take only one value.

eric.