HomeDocsIETF standardsRFCRFC 6400 — 6499
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Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF)
Request for Comments: 6474
Category: Standards Track
ISSN: 2070-1721
K. Li
B. Leiba
Huawei Technologies
December 2011

vCard Format Extensions: Place of Birth, Place and Date of Death

Abstract

The base vCard 4.0 specification defines a large number of properties, including date of birth. This specification adds three new properties to vCard 4.0: place of birth, place of death, and date of death.

Status of This Memo

This is an Internet Standards Track document.

This document is a product of the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF). It represents the consensus of the IETF community. It has received public review and has been approved for publication by the Internet Engineering Steering Group (IESG). Further information on Internet Standards is available in Section 2 of RFC 5741.

Information about the current status of this document, any errata, and how to provide feedback on it may be obtained at http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc6474.

Copyright Notice

Copyright © 2011 IETF Trust and the persons identified as the document authors. All rights reserved.

This document is subject to BCP 78 and the IETF Trust's Legal Provisions Relating to IETF Documents (http://trustee.ietf.org/license-info) in effect on the date of publication of this document. Please review these documents carefully, as they describe your rights and restrictions with respect to this document. Code Components extracted from this document must include Simplified BSD License text as described in Section 4.e of the Trust Legal Provisions and are provided without warranty as described in the Simplified BSD License.

Table of Contents

   1. Introduction ....................................................2
      1.1. Terminology Used in This Document ..........................2
   2. Identification Property Extensions ..............................2
      2.1. Property: BIRTHPLACE .......................................2
      2.2. Property: DEATHPLACE .......................................3
      2.3. Property: DEATHDATE ........................................4
   3. Security Considerations .........................................5
   4. IANA Considerations .............................................5
   5. Acknowledgements ................................................5
   6. Normative References ............................................5

1. Introduction

The base vCard 4.0 specification [RFC6350] defines a large number of properties, including date of birth. This specification adds three new properties to vCard 4.0: place of birth, place of death, and date of death.

1.1. Terminology Used in This Document

The key words "MUST", "MUST NOT", "REQUIRED", "SHALL", "SHALL NOT", "SHOULD", "SHOULD NOT", "RECOMMENDED", "MAY", and "OPTIONAL" in this document are to be interpreted as described in [RFC2119].

Syntax specifications shown here use the augmented Backus-Naur Form (ABNF) as described in [RFC5234], and are specified as in the base vCard specification [RFC6350].

2. Identification Property Extensions

2.1. Property: BIRTHPLACE

Namespace: 

   Property name:  BIRTHPLACE
   
   Purpose:  To specify the place of birth of the object the vCard
             represents.
   
   Value type:  A single text value (default) or a single URI value.
   
   Cardinality:  *1
   
   Property parameters:  VALUE, LANGUAGE

Description:

Format definition: 

      BIRTHPLACE-param =  "VALUE=" ("text" / "uri")
      BIRTHPLACE-value =  text / uri
         ; Value type and VALUE parameter MUST match.
      
      BIRTHPLACE-param =/  altid-param / language-param / any-param

Examples: 

      BIRTHPLACE:Babies'R'Us Hospital
      BIRTHPLACE;VALUE=uri:http://example.com/hospitals/babiesrus.vcf
      BIRTHPLACE;VALUE=uri:geo:46.769307,-71.283079

2.2. Property: DEATHPLACE

Namespace: 

   Property name:  DEATHPLACE
   
   Purpose:  To specify the place of death of the object the vCard
             represents.
   
   Value type:  A single text value (default) or a single URI value.
   
   Cardinality:  *1
   
   Property parameters:  VALUE, LANGUAGE

Description:

Format definition: 

      DEATHPLACE-param =  "VALUE=" ("text" / "uri")
      DEATHPLACE-value =  text / uri
         ; Value type and VALUE parameter MUST match.
      
      DEATHPLACE-param =/  altid-param / language-param / any-param

Examples: 

      DEATHPLACE:Aboard the Titanic\, near Newfoundland
      DEATHPLACE;VALUE=uri:http://example.com/ships/titanic.vcf
      DEATHPLACE;VALUE=uri:geo:41.731944,-49.945833

2.3. Property: DEATHDATE

Namespace: 

   Property name:  DEATHDATE
   
   Purpose:  To specify the date of death of the object the vCard
             represents.
   
   Value type:  The default is a single date-and-or-time value.  It can
                also be reset to a single text value.
   
   Cardinality:  *1
   
   Property parameters:  VALUE, CALSCALE, LANGUAGE

CALSCALE can only be present when the value is a date-and-or-time value and actually contains a date or date-time. LANGUAGE can only be present when the value is text. 

   Description:  The presence of a DEATHDATE property indicates that the
                 subject of the vCard is known to be dead.  The absence
                 of this property makes no statement one way or the
                 other.

Format definition: 

      DEATHDATE-param =  DEATHDATE-param-date / DEATHDATE-param-text
      DEATHDATE-value =  date-and-or-time / text
      
         ; Value type and VALUE parameter MUST match.
      
      DEATHDATE-param-date =  "VALUE=date-and-or-time" / calscale-param
         ; calscale-param can only be present when DEATHDATE-value is
         ; date-and-or-time and actually contains a date or date-time.
      
      DEATHDATE-param-date =  "VALUE=text" / language-param
      
      DEATHDATE-param =/  altid-param / any-param

Examples: 

      DEATHDATE:19960415
      DEATHDATE:--0415
      DEATHDATE;19531015T231000Z
      DEATHDATE;VALUE=text:circa 1800

3. Security Considerations

The properties defined in this document present no security considerations beyond those in Section 9 of the base vCard specification [RFC6350].

4. IANA Considerations

IANA has added the following entries to the vCard Properties registry, defined in Section 10.3.1 of [RFC6350]. 

         +-----------+--------------+------------------------+
         | Namespace | Property     | Reference              |
         +-----------+--------------+------------------------+
         |           | BIRTHPLACE   | [RFC6474], Section 2.1 |
         |           | DEATHPLACE   | [RFC6474], Section 2.2 |
         |           | DEATHDATE    | [RFC6474], Section 2.3 |
         +-----------+--------------+------------------------+

5. Acknowledgements

The authors of this document would like to thank Simon Perreault and Pete Resnick, the authors of a draft version of RFC 6350 whence the properties defined herein originated.

6. Normative References

   [RFC2119]  Bradner, S., "Key words for use in RFCs to Indicate
              Requirement Levels", BCP 14, RFC 2119, March 1997.
   
   [RFC5234]  Crocker, D., Ed., and P. Overell, "Augmented BNF for
              Syntax Specifications: ABNF", STD 68, RFC 5234,
              January 2008.
   
   [RFC6350]  Perreault, S., "vCard Format Specification", RFC 6350,
              August 2011.

Authors' Addresses

   Kepeng Li
   Huawei Technologies
   Huawei Base, Bantian, Longgang District
   Shenzhen, Guangdong  518129
   P.R. China
   
   Phone: +86-755-28974289
   EMail: likepeng@huawei.com

Barry Leiba
Huawei Technologies 

   Phone: +1 646 827 0648
   EMail: barryleiba@computer.org
   URI:   http://internetmessagingtechnology.org/