More fully specified error cases; added section on determining support.
Clarified certain historical inaccuracies and added links to archived versions of Frank Dawson's Internet-Drafts.
Updated status to Active per vote of the Jabber Council.
Many small fixes; added implementation notes.
Initial version.
This specification documents the vCard-XML format currently in use within the Jabber community. A future specification will recommend a standards-track protocol to supersede this informational document.
The basic functionality is for a user to store and retrieve an XML representation of his or her vCard using the data storage capabilities native to all existing Jabber server implementations. This is done by by sending an <iq/> of type "set" (storage) or "get" (retrieval) to one's Jabber server containing a <vCard/> child scoped by the 'vcard-temp' namespace, with the <vCard/> element containing the actual vCard-XML elements as defined by the vCard-XML DTD. Other users may then view one's vCard information.
vCards are an existing and widely-used standard for personal user information storage, somewhat like an electronic business card. The vCard format is defined in &rfc2426;.
-In 1998 and 1999, Frank Dawson submitted four revisions of an Internet-Draft proposing to represent the standard vCard format in XML. When the Jabber project was originally looking for a method to store personal user information, the most recent revision was draft-dawson-vcard-xml-dtd-01
Unfortunately, Dawson's proposal did not move forward within the IETF's standards process. For reasons now lost in the mists of time, the Jabber project continued to use the DTD from draft-dawson-vcard-xml-dtd-01, making two small modifications to adapt it for use within Jabber (adding the JABBERID and DESC elements) but also specifying element names in all caps rather than lowercase as defined in draft-dawson-vcard-xml-dtd-01. In addition, the Jabber community followed the usage (but not DTD) in that draft regarding version information, including it as an attribute of the vCard element rather than as a child element. This format was implemented within Jabber under the 'vcard-temp' namespace.
+In 1998 and 1999, Frank Dawson submitted four revisions of an Internet-Draft proposing to represent the standard vCard format in XML. When the jabberd open-source project was originally looking for a method to store personal user information, the most recent revision consulted by the jabberd developers was draft-dawson-vcard-xml-dtd-01
Unfortunately, Dawson's proposal did not move forward within the IETF's standards process. For reasons now lost in the mists of time, the Jabber project continued to use the DTD from draft-dawson-vcard-xml-dtd-01, making two small modifications to adapt it for use within the Jabber community (adding the JABBERID and DESC elements) but also specifying element names in all caps rather than lowercase as defined in draft-dawson-vcard-xml-dtd-01. In addition, the Jabber community followed the usage (but not DTD) in that draft regarding version information, including it as an attribute of the vCard element rather than as a child element. This format was implemented within the Jabber community under the 'vcard-temp' namespace.
A user may retrieve his or her own vCard by sending XML of the following form to his or her own JID (the 'to' attibute MUST NOT be included):
+A user retrieves his or her own vCard by sending an IQ-get with no 'to' address and containing a <vCard/> child element qualified by the 'vcard-temp' namespace.
The server should then return the vCard to the user:
+If a vCard exists for the user, the server MUST return in an IQ-result:
If no vCard exists, the server MUST return an ¬found; error.
+Notice that the previous IQ-set included only one changed element (the <DESC/> element). Currently there is no method for partial updates of a vCard, and the entire vCard must be sent to the server in order to update any part of the vCard.
-If a user attempts to perform an IQ set on another user's vCard (i.e., by setting a 'to' address to a JID other than the sending user's bare JID), the server MUST return a 403 "Forbidden" error.
+If a user attempts to perform an IQ set on another user's vCard (i.e., by setting a 'to' address to a JID other than the sending user's bare JID), the server MUST return a &forbidden; error.
+A user may view another user's vCard by sending an IQ of type "get" to the other user's bare JID.
@@ -207,19 +233,55 @@If no vCard exists or the user does not exist, the server MUST return a &unavailable; error.
+Note: The use of vCards is not limited to accounts associated with human users. For example, an XMPP server could itself have a vCard that defines the server's hosting organization, physical location, and relevant contact addresses.
If an entity supports the vcard-temp protocol, it MUST report that by including a service discovery feature of "vcard-temp" &NSNOTE; in response to a &xep0030; information request:
+This information can also be encapsulated via &xep0115; for entities who share presence.
+The vCard information published to one's Jabber server is world-readable; therefore, users should exercise due caution when determining what information to include (e.g., street addresses, personal telephone numbers, or email addresses).
This document requires no interaction with &IANA;.
The ®ISTRAR; includes the 'vcard-temp' namespace in its registry of official namespaces (see &NAMESPACES;).
Note the following:
The following DTD is a slightly modified version of that contained in draft-dawson-vcard-xml-dtd-01. The only modifications were to add the JABBERID and DESC elements.