Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) S. Perreault
Request for Comments: 6351 Viagenie
Category: Standards Track August 2011
ISSN: 2070-1721
xCard: vCard XML Representation
Abstract
This document defines the XML schema of the vCard data format.
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/rfc6351.
Copyright Notice
Copyright (c) 2011 IETF Trust and the persons identified as the
document authors. All rights reserved.
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the Trust Legal Provisions and are provided without warranty as
described in the Simplified BSD License.
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RFC 6351 xCard August 2011
Table of Contents
1. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
2. Conventions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
3. The Schema . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
4. Example: Author's XML vCard . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
5. Design Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
5.1. Extensibility . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
5.2. Limitations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
6. Format Conversions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
7. Security Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
8. IANA Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
8.1. Registration of the XML Namespace . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
8.2. Media Type . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
9. Acknowledgments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
10. References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
10.1. Normative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
10.2. Informative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
Appendix A. Relax NG Schema . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
1. Introduction
vCard [RFC6350] is a data format for representing and exchanging
information about individuals and other entities. It is a text-based
format (as opposed to a binary format). This document defines xCard,
an XML [W3C.REC-xml-20081126] representation for vCard. The
underlying data structure is exactly the same, enabling a 1-to-1
mapping between the original vCard format and the XML representation.
The XML formatting may be preferred in some contexts where an XML
engine is readily available and may be reused instead of writing a
standalone vCard parser.
Earlier work on an XML format for vCard was started in 1998 by Frank
Dawson [VCARD-DTD]. Sadly, it did not take over the world.
2. Conventions
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].
3. The Schema
The schema is expressed in the RELAX NG language [ISO.19757-2.2008]
and is found in Appendix A.
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RFC 6351 xCard August 2011
4. Example: Author's XML vCard
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<vcards xmlns="urn:ietf:params:xml:ns:vcard-4.0">
<vcard>
<fn><text>Simon Perreault</text></fn>
<n>
<surname>Perreault</surname>
datatracker.ietf.org