.VCS

Introduction

vCalendar 1.0 is the calendar format that came before iCalendar. It was published in 1996 by the versit Consortium, the same group that made vCard, to let calendar programs and devices swap events and to-do items. iCalendar replaced it from 1998, but .vcs files lived on in mobile phones of the 2000s, which sent appointments as vCalendar over infrared, Bluetooth or text message, and older versions of Outlook could save an appointment as a .vcs file.

Structure

A vCalendar file uses the same text lines as vCard 2.1: NAME;PARAMETER=value:value, with groups between BEGIN: and END: lines. The file is one VCALENDAR with the line VERSION:1.0, holding VEVENT and VTODO entries. An event has properties such as DTSTART, DTEND, SUMMARY, DESCRIPTION and LOCATION. Text outside ASCII is usually written with a CHARSET parameter and quoted-printable encoding.

The main differences from iCalendar are the version line, alarms written as properties such as DALARM and AALARM rather than nested VALARM components, a shorter syntax for repeat rules, and the lack of time zone definitions.

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