pretty-jcal

Introduction

RFC7265 JSON Format for iCalendar (jCal) is a great to handle iCalendar content in Javascript.

This repo provide a JSON format converter to allow 2-way-convert between the prettyJCAL and jCal.

Installation

yarn add pretty-jcal

npm i pretty-jcal

Reason

When dealing with iCalendar(ics) files, we often want a js object representation of the ical object. It's natural for us to use jCal. However, there's a problem.

Example jCal JSON:

[
  "vcalendar",
  [
    ["calscale", {}, "text", "GREGORIAN"],
    ["prodid", {}, "text", "-//Example Inc.//Example Calendar//EN"],
    ["version", {}, "text", "2.0"]
  ],
  [
    [
      "vevent",
      [
        ["dtstamp", {}, "date-time", "2008-02-05T19:12:24Z"],
        ["dtstart", {}, "date", "2008-10-06"],
        ["summary", {}, "text", "Planning meeting"],
        ["uid", {}, "text", "4088E990AD89CB3DBB484909"]
      ],
      []
    ]
  ]
]

While it's compact and efficient, you cannot figure out what is what and you would end up writing code like: calendar[1][2][3] + component[2][3] which is borderline unreadable and unmaintainable.

Solution

We can transform the jCal JSON to make it more like a normal JSON, while it's more verbose, it's much easier to write readable and maintainable code.

Example PrettyJCAL JSON:

{
  "name": "vcalendar",
  "properties": [
    {
      "name": "calscale",
      "type": "text",
      "value": "GREGORIAN"
    },
    {
      "name": "prodid",
      "type": "text",
      "value": "-//Example Inc.//Example Calendar//EN"
    },
    {
      "name": "version",
      "type": "text",
      "value": "2.0"
    }
  ],
  "components": [
    {
      "name": "vevent",
      "properties": [
        {
          "name": "dtstamp",
          "type": "date-time",
          "value": "2008-02-05T19:12:24Z"
        },
        {
          "name": "dtstart",
          "type": "date",
          "value": "2008-10-06"
        },
        {
          "name": "summary",
          "type": "text",
          "value": "Planning meeting"
        },
        {
          "name": "uid",
          "type": "text",
          "value": "4088E990AD89CB3DBB484909"
        }
      ],
      "components": []
    }
  ]
}

Features

Readable JSON format with full information about each node, follows JSON convention which only use array when there's multiple objects of same type.
jCal PrettyJCAL 2-way-convert, with no loss in information.
Built-in Typescript typings, make sure your code strongly typed and safe.

Usage

Caveat

The typescript typing does not verify against jCal standard, it's up to user to make sure only valid properties and components were used.

Function name	Parameter type	Return value type	Description
jcal2prettyJCAL	JCALComponentNode	PrettyJCALComponentNode	Convert standard jCal to prettyJCAL JSON format
prettyJCAL2jcal	PrettyJCALComponentNode	JCALComponentNode	Convert prettyJCAL JSON format to standard jCal

JCALComponentNode (Array type)

Property	Description
0	Component name
1	Component properties
2	Children components

JCALPropertyNode (Array type)

Property	Description
0	name of the property
1	parameters of this property
2	type of the property value
3	property value

PrettyJCALComponentNode (Object type)

Property	Description
Name	Component name
properties	Component properties
components	Children components

PrettyJCALPropertyNode (Object type)

Property	Description
name	name of the property
parameters	parameters of this property
type	type of the property value
value	property value

License

MIT

natelindev/pretty-jcal