vcard-temp

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vcard-temp This specification provides canonical documentation of the vCard-XML format currently in use within the Jabber community. &LEGALNOTICE; 0054 Active Historical Standards XMPP Core vcard-temp &stpeter; 1.2 2008-07-16 psa

More fully specified error cases; added section on determining support.

1.1 2003-03-26 psa

Clarified certain historical inaccuracies and added links to archived versions of Frank Dawson's Internet-Drafts.

1.0 2003-01-09 psa

Updated status to Active per vote of the Jabber Council.

0.2 2002-11-06 psa

Many small fixes; added implementation notes.

0.1 2002-10-31 psa

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 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 This document is archived at <http://www.watersprings.org/pub/id/draft-dawson-vcard-xml-dtd-01.txt>.. He also submitted a -02 revision on November 15, 1998 This document is archived at <http://www.watersprings.org/pub/id/draft-dawson-vcard-xml-dtd-02.txt>. and a -03 revision on June 22, 1999 This document is archived at <http://www.watersprings.org/pub/id/draft-dawson-vcard-xml-dtd-03.txt>..

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 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.

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If a vCard exists for the user, the server MUST return in an IQ-result:

Peter Saint-Andre Saint-Andre Peter stpeter http://www.xmpp.org/xsf/people/stpeter.shtml 1966-08-06 XMPP Standards Foundation Executive Director Patron Saint 303-308-3282 Suite 600 1899 Wynkoop Street Denver CO 80202 USA 303-555-1212 Denver CO 80209 USA stpeter@jabber.org stpeter@jabber.org More information about me is located on my personal website: http://www.saint-andre.com/ ]]>

If no vCard exists, the server MUST return a stanza error (which SHOULD be ¬found;) or an IQ-result containing an empty <vCard/> element.

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A user may publish or update his or her vCard by sending an IQ of type "set" with no 'to' address, following the format in the previous use case.

The server then returns an IQ-result (or an IQ-error).

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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 stanza error, which SHOULD be &forbidden; or ¬allowed;.

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A user may view another user's vCard by sending an IQ of type "get" to the other user's bare JID.

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In accordance with &xmppcore;, a compliant server MUST respond on behalf of the requestor and not forward the IQ to the requestee's connected resource.

JeremieMiller Jeremie Miller jer jeremie@jabber.org jer@jabber.org ]]>

If no vCard exists or the user does not exist, the server MUST return a stanza error, which SHOULD be either &unavailable; or ¬found; (but the server MUST return the same error condition in both cases to help prevent directory harvesting attacks).

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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:

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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;).

As authorized by &xep0147;, the XMPP Registrar maintains a registry of queries and key-value pairs for use in XMPP URIs (see &QUERYTYPES;).

The "vcard" querytype is registered as a vCard-related action.

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The following submission registers the "vcard" querytype.


  vcard
  vcard-temp
  enables retrieval of an entity's vCard data
  XEP-0054

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Note the following:

The correct capitalization of the wrapper element is <vCard/> (and XML element names are case-sensitive).
All elements within the <vCard/> element MUST be in ALL CAPS (even though this is at odds with draft-dawson-vcard-xml-dtd-01).
The country abbreviation is contained in a <CTRY/> element, not a <COUNTRY/> element (even though this is at odds with draft-dawson-vcard-xml-dtd-01).
Phone numbers MUST be contained in a <NUMBER> element, not included as CDATA within the <TEL/> element.
If no telephone number is included in a <TEL/> element, an empty <NUMBER/> child MUST be included.
Email addresses MUST be contained in a <USERID> element, not included as CDATA within the <EMAIL/> element.
Some Jabber implementations add a 'version' attribute to the <vCard/> element, with the value set at "2.0" or "3.0". The DTD is incorrect, and the examples in draft-dawson-vcard-xml-dtd-01 clearly show that version information is to be included by means of a 'version' attribute, not the <VERSION/> element as defined in the DTD. However, to conform to draft-dawson-vcard-xml-dtd-01, the value should be "3.0", not "2.0".

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.

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