How to generate an iCalendar file

January 1, 2012 Samuel ASP.NET, C#, 0

Problem : Generate a iCalendar file which will trigger a calendar application (eg. outlook) to open with an updated event.

The iCalendar file is a fairly common feature which most developers add to enable  users to add events to their personalized calendars via a custom calendar application

Solution : Create a web handler which will create a plain text file with the ‘ics’ extension.

using System;
using System.Web;
namespace MyNamespace
{
 public class iCalendar: IHttpHandler
 {

  public bool IsReusable
  {
   get
   {
    return true;
   }
  }

  string DateFormat
  {
    get
    {
      return "yyyyMMddTHHmmssZ"; // 20060215T092000Z
    }
  }

  public void ProcessRequest(HttpContext context)
  {
   DateTime startDate = DateTime.Now.AddDays(5);
   DateTime endDate = startDate.AddMinutes(35);
   string organizer = "foo@bar.com";
   string location = "My House";
   string summary = "My Event";
   string description = "Please come to\\nMy House";

   context.Response.ContentType="text/calendar";
   context.Response.AddHeader("Content-disposition", "attachment; filename=appointment.ics");

   context.Response.Write("BEGIN:VCALENDAR");
   context.Response.Write("\nVERSION:2.0");
   context.Response.Write("\nMETHOD:PUBLISH");
   context.Response.Write("\nBEGIN:VEVENT");
   context.Response.Write("\nORGANIZER:MAILTO:" + organizer);
   context.Response.Write("\nDTSTART:" + startDate.ToUniversalTime().ToString(DateFormat));
   context.Response.Write("\nDTEND:" + endDate.ToUniversalTime().ToString(DateFormat));
   context.Response.Write("\nLOCATION:" + location);
   context.Response.Write("\nUID:" + DateTime.Now.ToUniversalTime().ToString(DateFormat) + "@mysite.com");
   context.Response.Write("\nDTSTAMP:" + DateTime.Now.ToUniversalTime().ToString(DateFormat));
   context.Response.Write("\nSUMMARY:" + summary);
   context.Response.Write("\nDESCRIPTION:" + description);
   context.Response.Write("\nPRIORITY:5");
   context.Response.Write("\nCLASS:PUBLIC");
   context.Response.Write("\nEND:VEVENT");
   context.Response.Write("\nEND:VCALENDAR");
   context.Response.End();
  }
 }
}

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