PHP ICS Parser

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Installation

Requirements

• PHP 5 (≥ 5.3.0)
• Valid ICS (.ics, .ical, .ifb) file
• IANA, Unicode CLDR or Windows Time Zones
  • Windows will need the $replaceWindowsTimeZoneIds = true configuration

Setup

• Install Composer
  • Add the following dependency to composer.json
    • ⚠️ Note with Composer the owner is johngrogg and not u01jmg3
  • To access the latest stable branch (v2) use the following

    • To access new features you can require dev-master

      {
          "require": {
              "johngrogg/ics-parser": "^2"
          }
      }

How to use

How to instantiate the Parser

• Using the example script as a guide, refer to this code

What will the parser return?

• Each key/value pair from the iCal file will be parsed creating an associative array for both the calendar and every event it contains.

• Also injected will be content under dtstart_tz and dtend_tz for accessing start and end dates with time zone data applied.

• Where possible DateTime objects are used and returned.

  // Dump the whole calendar
  var_dump($ical->cal);
  
  // Dump every event
  var_dump($ical->events());

• Also included are special {property}_array arrays which further resolve the contents of a key/value pair.

  // Dump a parsed event's start date
  var_dump($event->dtstart_array);
  
  // array (size=4)
  //   0 =>
  //     array (size=1)
  //       'TZID' => string 'America/Detroit' (length=15)
  //   1 => string '20160409T090000' (length=15)
  //   2 => int 1460192400
  //   3 => string 'TZID=America/Detroit:20160409T090000' (length=36)

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API

ICal API

Variables

Name	Configurable	Default Value	Description
$alarmCount	✖️	N/A	Tracks the number of alarms in the current iCal feed
$cal	✖️	N/A	The parsed calendar
$defaultSpan	☑️	2	The value in years to use for indefinite, recurring events
$defaultTimeZone	☑️	System default	Enables customisation of the default time zone
$defaultWeekStart	☑️	MO	The two letter representation of the first day of the week
$disableCharacterReplacement	☑️	false	Toggles whether to disable all character replacement. Will replace curly quotes and other special characters with their standard equivalents if false. Can be a costly operation!
$eventCount	✖️	N/A	Tracks the number of events in the current iCal feed
$filterDaysAfter	☑️	N/A	When set the parser will ignore all events more than roughly this many days after now. To be on the safe side it is advised that you make the filter window +/- 1 day larger than necessary. For performance reasons this filter is applied before any date and time zone calculations are done. Hence, depending the time zone settings of the parser and the calendar the cut-off date is not "calibrated". You can then use $ical->eventsFromRange() to precisely shrink the window.
$filterDaysBefore	☑️	N/A	When set the parser will ignore all events more than roughly this many days before now. See $filterDaysAfter above for more details.
$freeBusyCount	✖️	N/A	Tracks the free/busy count in the current iCal feed
$httpBasicAuth	✖️	array()	Holds the username and password for HTTP basic authentication
$replaceWindowsTimeZoneIds	☑️	false	Toggles whether to replace (non-CLDR) Windows time zone IDs with their IANA equivalent e.g. "Mountain Standard Time" would be replaced with "America/Denver". As there are 130+ Windows time zone IDs that need to be searched and replaced this flag should only be turned on if you know that your calendar file contains such time zone IDs. Microsoft Exchange calendars are often seen using such IDs.
$skipRecurrence	☑️	false	Toggles whether to skip the parsing of recurrence rules
$todoCount	✖️	N/A	Tracks the number of todos in the current iCal feed
$useTimeZoneWithRRules	☑️	false	Toggles whether to use time zone info when parsing recurrence rules

Methods

Method	Parameter(s)	Visibility	Description
__construct	$files = false, $options = array()	public	Creates the ICal object
initFile	$file	protected	Initialises lines from a file
initLines	$lines	protected	Initialises the parser using an array containing each line of iCal content
initString	$string	protected	Initialises lines from a string
initUrl	$url, $username = null, $password = null	protected	Initialises lines from a URL. Accepts a username/password combination for HTTP basic authentication
addCalendarComponentWithKeyAndValue	$component, $keyword, $value	protected	Add one key and value pair to the $this->cal array
calendarDescription	-	public	Returns the calendar description
calendarName	-	public	Returns the calendar name
calendarTimeZone	$ignoreUtc	public	Returns the calendar time zone
cleanData	$data	protected	Replaces curly quotes and other special characters with their standard equivalents
convertDayOrdinalToPositive	$dayNumber, $weekday, $timestamp	protected	Converts a negative day ordinal to its equivalent positive form
eventsFromInterval	$interval	public	Returns a sorted array of events following a given string, or false if no events exist in the range
eventsFromRange	$rangeStart = false, $rangeEnd = false	public	Returns a sorted array of events in a given range, or an empty array if no events exist in the range
events	-	public	Returns an array of Events
fileOrUrl	$filename	protected	Reads an entire file or URL into an array
freeBusyEvents	-	public	Returns an array of arrays with all free/busy events
hasEvents	-	public	Returns a boolean value whether the current calendar has events or not
iCalDateToDateTime	$icalDate, $forceTimeZone = false, $forceUtc = false	public	Returns a DateTime object from an iCal date time format
iCalDateToUnixTimestamp	$icalDate, $forceTimeZone = false, $forceUtc = false	public	Returns a Unix timestamp from an iCal date time format
iCalDateWithTimeZone	$event, $key, $format = DATE_TIME_FORMAT	public	Returns a date adapted to the calendar time zone depending on the event TZID
isExdateMatch	$exdate, $anEvent, $recurringOffset	protected	Checks if an excluded date matches a given date by reconciling time zones
isFileOrUrl	$filename	protected	Checks if a filename exists as a file or URL
isValidDate	$value	public	Checks if a date string is a valid date
isValidTimeZoneId	$timeZone	protected	Checks if a time zone is valid (IANA or CLDR)
isValidIanaTimeZoneId	$timeZone	protected	Checks if a time zone is a valid IANA time zone
isValidCldrTimeZoneId	$timeZone, doConversion = false	protected	Checks if a time zone is a valid CLDR time zone
keyValueFromString	$text	protected	Gets the key value pair from an iCal string
mb_chr	$code	protected	Provides a polyfill for PHP 7.2's mb_chr(), which is a multibyte safe version of chr()
mb_str_replace	$search, $replace, $subject, $count = 0	protected	Replaces all occurrences of a search string with a given replacement string
numberOfDays	$days, $start, $end	protected	Gets the number of days between a start and end date
parseDuration	$date, $duration, $format = 'U'	protected	Parses a duration and applies it to a date
parseExdates	$event	public	Parses a list of excluded dates to be applied to an Event
processDateConversions	-	protected	Processes date conversions using the time zone
processEventIcalDateTime	$event, $index = 3	protected	Extends the {DTSTART|DTEND|RECURRENCE-ID}_array array to include an iCal date time for each event
processEvents	-	protected	Performs admin tasks on all events as read from the iCal file
processRecurrences	-	protected	Processes recurrence rules
removeUnprintableChars	$data	protected	Removes unprintable ASCII and UTF-8 characters
sortEventsWithOrder	$events, $sortOrder = SORT_ASC	public	Sorts events based on a given sort order
trimToRecurrenceCount	$rrules, $recurrenceEvents	protected	Ensures the recurrence count is enforced against generated recurrence events
unfold	$lines	protected	Unfolds an iCal file in preparation for parsing

Constants

Name	Description
DATE_TIME_FORMAT_PRETTY	Default pretty date time format to use
DATE_TIME_FORMAT	Default date time format to use
ICAL_DATE_TIME_TEMPLATE	String template to generate an iCal date time
RECURRENCE_EVENT	Used to isolate generated recurrence events
SECONDS_IN_A_WEEK	The number of seconds in a week
TIME_FORMAT	Default time format to use
TIME_ZONE_UTC	UTC time zone string
UNIX_FORMAT	Unix timestamp date format
UNIX_MIN_YEAR	The year Unix time began

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Event API (extends ICal API)

Methods

Method	Parameter(s)	Visibility	Description
__construct	$data = array()	public	Creates the Event object
prepareData	$value	protected	Prepares the data for output
printData	$html = HTML_TEMPLATE	public	Returns Event data excluding anything blank within an HTML template
snakeCase	$input, $glue = '_', $separator = '-'	protected	Converts the given input to snake_case

Constants

Name	Description
HTML_TEMPLATE	String template to use when pretty printing content

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Credits

• Jonathan Goode (programming, bug fixing, enhancement, coding standard)
• John Grogg (programming, addition of event recurrence handling)

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Tools for Testing

• iCal Validator
• Recurrence Rule Tester
• Unix Timestamp Converter