VCard

vCard is a standard format for exchanging contact information, originated in 1995 as Versitcard. It is commonly used as an e-mail attachment for a digital business card to give recipients the sender's addresses (paper, e-mail, phone, etc.), but it can also be used to store, import, export, and transfer address books by saving/loading multiple records (possibly stored in the same file). A number of RFC documents have been issued regarding versions, extensions, and attributes of this format. Among the extended attributes are date and place of death, so apparently the usage of this format is expected to go beyond tracking current address books (in which entries for deceased persons aren't very useful) and perhaps be used for other things such as bibliography and genealogy where persons both living and dead do need to be tracked.

vCard is a plain-text-based format, and there are variants xCard (in XML format) and h-card (in HTML format).

Specs and standards

 * RFC 2425 - A MIME Content-Type for Directory Information
 * RFC 2426 - vCard MIME Directory Profile
 * RFC 2739 - Calendar Attributes for vCard and LDAP
 * RFC 4122 - UUID URN namespace (could be used for UID type)
 * RFC 4770 - vCard Extensions for Instant Messaging
 * RFC 6350 - vCard Format Specification
 * RFC 6351 - xCard: vCard XML Representation
 * RFC 6473 - vCard KIND:application
 * RFC 6474 - vCard Format Extensions: Place of Birth, Place and Date of Death

Metaformat files

 * DFDL schema (see DFDL)

APIs

 * Google CardDAV API Developer's Guide

Utilities

 * Encode VCard contact data as QR bar code
 * PMVCARD: display vCard data; import into Pegasus Mail

Sample files

 * https://telparia.com/fileFormatSamples/document/vCard/

Other links

 * vCard (Wikipedia)
 * IETF vCardDAV working group
 * vCard to Contact Object Conversion Algorithm (Microsoft)