Google Calendar recurring events (iPhone)

Question

I'm in the middle of building a simple iPhone calendar app, & I really do need only simple functionality - add event, update event, delete event, with the only complexity being the events need to have the option of being recurring or single. I have managed the add & delete event bit easily enough, but I'm finding it impossible to do the other bits, namely -

• add an event with recurrences (ie, up to a certain date, every x days, etc)

• edit an existing event, so that it recurrs or stops recurring

• edit a specific recurrence of a recurring event / or all recurrences

I think I can manage the other stuff, but the GData documentation seems almost non-existent (if anyone can point me to some meaningful objective-c docs for the GData stuff, I'd be a really happy bunny - at the moment I'm gradually trawling through all its code to try & figure out how to use it)

Any code samples for the above would be very much appreciated!

Many thanks.

Answer 1

add event with recurrences:

Recurrences are expressed in iCalendar format. You have to fortunately know only fields DTSTART, DTEND, EXDATE, RDATE, RRULE. Also notice, that alarms are placed in the root of xml event entry. (You cannot use when and recurrence tag together). Google calendar web app does not mark RDATE, EXDATE, but understands them and other applications can mark them.

edit recurring event:

If you are able to post normal and recurring event it should be no problem to update it. I tested update to google from normal to recurring and back without no problem.

edit a specific recurrence of a recurring event

Exceptions from recurrence are expressed as new events (confirmed or canceled) which have link (in tag) originalEvent to the recurring event. Be aware that modification of a field in a recurring event can automatically change the field in the events exceptions (e.g. title). If you remove the originalEvent while updating to google, google silently ignores it.