[vcard] multiple names, multiple address lines

Hi,

It seems necessary to allow multiple items in name sub-components, and
address sub-components.

Is there any reason why we can't just space separate multi-valued N
components like this:

[]    rdf:type ex:N ;
      ex:familyName "Geldof" ;
      ex:givenName "Peaches Honeyblossom Michelle Charlotte Angel Vanessa" .

are there any legitimate i18n concerns about doing that?

[
  I don't know what additionalNames is supposed to be for, btw. RFC2426
  claims to base N on X.520[1], but X.520 doesn't have additionalNames,
  and it puts multiple space separated components, representing first
  names and middle names into the givenName field.

  I suppose you need to think what the N field is for.  vCards guarantee
  an FN field (in theory), which is most appropriate for display, so I
  guess that N is just to simplify sorting on surname and given name.  I
  guess that additionalNames doesn't necessarily have a correct position
  in the formatted name and is just a catch-all for everything else.
  So as long as it is preserved, I don't think it matters what it
  means.
]


For addresses the intent is clearly for multiple items in each
sub-component to represent multiple lines in the address, so why not
just represent them as a line-feed separated value?

Eg:

[]    rdf:type ex:ADR ;
      ex:streetAddress "1 High Street\nSome Village" ;
      ex:locality "Postal City" ;
      ex:region "County" ;
      ex:country "UK" ;

Although this isn't 100% round-tripable because it conflates "a,b" and
"a\nb", in the original vCard syntax, I don't think that matters as they are
semantically identical.

      
[1] http://www.itu.int/rec/T-REC-X.520-199708-S/e

-- 
Dave

Received on Monday, 2 April 2007 12:24:17 UTC