Parsing files (ics/ icalendar) using Python

Question

I have a .ics file in the following format. What is the best way to parse it? I need to retrieve the Summary, Description, and Time for each of the entries.

BEGIN:VCALENDAR X-LOTUS-CHARSET:UTF-8 VERSION:2.0 PRODID:-//Lotus Development Corporation//NONSGML Notes 8.0//EN METHOD:PUBLISH BEGIN:VTIMEZONE TZID:India BEGIN:STANDARD DTSTART:19500101T020000 TZOFFSETFROM:+0530 TZOFFSETTO:+0530 END:STANDARD END:VTIMEZONE BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID="India":20100615T111500 DTEND;TZID="India":20100615T121500 TRANSP:OPAQUE DTSTAMP:20100713T071035Z CLASS:PUBLIC DESCRIPTION:Emails\nDarlene\n Murphy\nDr. Ferri\n  UID:12D3901F0AD9E83E65257743001F2C9A-Lotus_Notes_Generated X-LOTUS-UPDATE-SEQ:1 X-LOTUS-UPDATE-WISL:$S:1;$L:1;$B:1;$R:1;$E:1;$W:1;$O:1;$M:1 X-LOTUS-NOTESVERSION:2 X-LOTUS-APPTTYPE:0 X-LOTUS-CHILD_UID:12D3901F0AD9E83E65257743001F2C9A END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID="India":20100628T130000 DTEND;TZID="India":20100628T133000 TRANSP:OPAQUE DTSTAMP:20100628T055408Z CLASS:PUBLIC DESCRIPTION: SUMMARY:smart energy management LOCATION:8778/92050462 UID:07F96A3F1C9547366525775000203D96-Lotus_Notes_Generated X-LOTUS-UPDATE-SEQ:1 X-LOTUS-UPDATE-WISL:$S:1;$L:1;$B:1;$R:1;$E:1;$W:1;$O:1;$M:1 X-LOTUS-NOTESVERSION:2 X-LOTUS-NOTICETYPE:A X-LOTUS-APPTTYPE:3 X-LOTUS-CHILD_UID:07F96A3F1C9547366525775000203D96 END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID="India":20100629T110000 DTEND;TZID="India":20100629T120000 TRANSP:OPAQUE DTSTAMP:20100713T071037Z CLASS:PUBLIC SUMMARY:meeting UID:6011DDDD659E49D765257751001D2B4B-Lotus_Notes_Generated X-LOTUS-UPDATE-SEQ:1 X-LOTUS-UPDATE-WISL:$S:1;$L:1;$B:1;$R:1;$E:1;$W:1;$O:1;$M:1 X-LOTUS-NOTESVERSION:2 X-LOTUS-APPTTYPE:0 X-LOTUS-CHILD_UID:6011DDDD659E49D765257751001D2B4B END:VEVENT 

Answer 1

The icalendar package looks nice.

For instance, to write a file:

from icalendar import Calendar, Event from datetime import datetime from pytz import UTC # timezone  cal = Calendar() cal.add('prodid', '-//My calendar product//mxm.dk//') cal.add('version', '2.0')  event = Event() event.add('summary', 'Python meeting about calendaring') event.add('dtstart', datetime(2005,4,4,8,0,0,tzinfo=UTC)) event.add('dtend', datetime(2005,4,4,10,0,0,tzinfo=UTC)) event.add('dtstamp', datetime(2005,4,4,0,10,0,tzinfo=UTC)) event['uid'] = '20050115T101010/[email protected]' event.add('priority', 5)  cal.add_component(event)  f = open('example.ics', 'wb') f.write(cal.to_ical()) f.close() 

Tadaaa, you get this file:

BEGIN:VCALENDAR PRODID:-//My calendar product//mxm.dk// VERSION:2.0 BEGIN:VEVENT DTEND;VALUE=DATE:20050404T100000Z DTSTAMP;VALUE=DATE:20050404T001000Z DTSTART;VALUE=DATE:20050404T080000Z PRIORITY:5 SUMMARY:Python meeting about calendaring UID:20050115T101010/[email protected] END:VEVENT END:VCALENDAR 

But what lies in this file?

g = open('example.ics','rb') gcal = Calendar.from_ical(g.read()) for component in gcal.walk():     print component.name g.close() 

You can see it easily:

>>>  VCALENDAR VEVENT >>>  

What about parsing the data about the events:

g = open('example.ics','rb') gcal = Calendar.from_ical(g.read()) for component in gcal.walk():     if component.name == "VEVENT":         print(component.get('summary'))         print(component.get('dtstart'))         print(component.get('dtend'))         print(component.get('dtstamp')) g.close() 

Now you get:

>>>  Python meeting about calendaring 20050404T080000Z 20050404T100000Z 20050404T001000Z >>>