Webcal

Webcal is an unofficial uniform resource identifier (URI) scheme for accessing iCalendar files. It is also the name of two web calendar applications written in Perl.

The webcal scheme was devised for use with the Apple iCal application and has become a common de facto standard for accessing iCalendar formatted files via WebDAV, usually using GET method. It is not an official URI scheme, such as http and ftp, as registered with IANA. As of 23 September 2012, the webcal scheme has provisional status with IANA. The Webcal protocol prefix is used to trigger an external protocol handler which is passed the URL of the .ics file rather than being passed the downloaded contents of the file, in much the same way feed is sometimes used to trigger external RSS readers. The idea is that with this protocol prefix the target file should be subscribed to rather than imported into the calendar application as would happen with a simple download.

Handlers

Notable software packages and web applications supporting the webcal protocol include:

• Google Calendar
• Microsoft Outlook
• Mozilla Lightning

Alternative protocols

CalDAV and GroupDAV are both efforts to provide WebDAV-based access to calendar stores with finer granularity. The CalDAV Access protocol has been standardized by the IETF and published as RFC 4791. Extensions to CalDAV for automated scheduling are also standardized, as RFC 6638.

Neither of those protocols call for using DAV style URIs. Instead, both drafts call for using the HTTP OPTIONS feature to return that the server supports calendaring extensions.

External links

• CalDAV home page
• RFC 4324: Calendar Access Protocol (CAP)
• RFC 5545: Internet Calendaring and Scheduling Core Object Specification (iCalendar) (replaces RFC 2445)
• Webcal description and rationale archived at the Wayback Machine.