manipulate Evolution, KCalExtended/mkcal, QtContacts PIM items via uniform command line
The current development version of SyncEvolution, the one which will become 1.1, has some new features which may be useful for command line aficionados like myself: query and manipulate items in the databases that can be accessed with SyncEvolution backends.
This is particularly useful for the new PIM storages in MeeGo, QtContacts and mkcal (formerly known as KCalExtended). Both are part of MeeGo Core, but come without any kind of frontend in Core. SyncEvolution provides a uniform way of testing these new storages using the command line or scripts.
Installation
In MeeGo, make sure that at least 1.0.99.5 rpms (required for mkcal) or better, 1.0.99.6 (for QtContacts) get installed. The core “syncevolution” rpm is needed plus “syncevolution-kcalextended” resp. “syncevolution-qtcontacts”.
When compiling from source, check out the master branch of “syncevolution” and “libsynthesis” and follow the instructions in the “HACKING” document. Add –enable-kcalextended resp. –enable-qtcontacts as needed…
HOWTO
These examples illustrate how to use the new options in combination with mkcal. In 1.0.99.6, “mkcal” can be used as type instead of “kcalextended”, as in the examples below. Only events are supported at the moment, todos and journal entries in the calendar are ignored.
Wipe out calendar data the hard way:
rm -f ~/.calendardb*Import an event:
$ cat >/tmp/example.ics <<EOF
BEGIN:VCALENDAR
PRODID:-//Ximian//NONSGML Evolution Calendar//EN
VERSION:2.0
METHOD:PUBLISH
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART:20100823T170000
DTEND:20100823T173000
SUMMARY:first event
CLASS:PUBLIC
END:VEVENT
END:VCALENDAR
EOF
$ syncevolution --import /tmp/example.ics --source-property type=kcalextended @foo bar
#0: 3f630f1d-8009-4465-907b-3ec28248b90b-rid
[ERROR] stderr: kdedate/ksystemtimezone.cpp: 313 - cannot get wall_clock_info (localzone) - QDBusError("org.freedesktop.DBus.Error.ServiceUnknown", "The name com.nokia.time was not provided by any .service files")Because many of these system libraries don’t expect to be used by command line users, they spew out a lot of debugging information. The SyncEvolution command line filters this output and suppresses most of it. Developers who want to see it, can set the SYNCEVOLUTION_DEBUG environment variable to 1. They should also add –daemon=no to run the operation inside the “syncevolution” process instead of the “syncevo-dbus-server”.
The error in this case is MeeGo bug, which I’ll strip from the output of the following examples.
The command line above works without any “@foo” configuration and “bar” data source, because the source type is specified explicitly. Configuring this value permanently makes the command line shorter:
$ syncevolution --configure --source-property type=kcalextended @default calendarList all events:
$ syncevolution --daemon=no --print-items @default calendar
3f630f1d-8009-4465-907b-3ec28248b90b-rid: first eventExport events to stdout:
$ syncevolution --export - @default calendar
BEGIN:VCALENDAR
PRODID:-//K Desktop Environment//NONSGML libkcal 4.3//EN
VERSION:2.0
BEGIN:VEVENT
CREATED:20100901T131100Z
DTSTAMP:20100901T130859Z
UID:a62893e3-3df1-4a92-b57b-d05c805d4078
LAST-MODIFIED:20100901T131009Z
SUMMARY:first event
DTSTART:20100823T170000
DTEND:20100823T173000
TRANSP:OPAQUE
END:VEVENT
END:VCALENDARExport one specific event into a file (like everything else, this also works for multiple events, writing into a single file or a directory):
$ syncevolution --export /tmp/exported.ics @default calendar 3f630f1d-8009-4465-907b-3ec28248b90b-ridUpdate that event, showing of reading from stdin here:
$ perl -p -e 's/first event/first event modified/' /tmp/example.ics | syncevolution --daemon=no --update - @default calendar 3f630f1d-8009-4465-907b-3ec28248b90b-rid
#0: 3f630f1d-8009-4465-907b-3ec28248b90b-rid
$ syncevolution --daemon=no --export - @default calendar | grep SUMMARY
SUMMARY:first event
Hmm, that didn’t work as intended. Need to investigate… ah, I haven’t reimplemented that part with the new mkcal API yet. Will be fixed in 1.0.99.6.
Delete the event:
$ syncevolution --delete-items @default calendar 3f630f1d-8009-4465-907b-3ec28248b90b-rid
[INFO] calendar: deleting "first event"REFERENCE
$ syncevolution --help
...
List items:
syncevolution --print-items <config> <source>
Export item(s):
syncevolution [--delimiter <string>] --export <dir>|<file>|- <config> <source> [<luid> ...]
Add item(s):
syncevolution [--delimiter <string>|none] --import <dir>|<file>|- <config> <source>
Update item(s)
syncevolution --update <dir> <config> <source>
syncevolution [--delimiter <string>|none] --update <file>|- <config> <source> <luid> ...
Remove item(s):
syncevolution --delete-items <config> <source> <luid> ...
...
--print-items
Shows all existing items using one line per item using
the format "<luid>[: <short description>]". Whether the description
is available depends on the backend and the kind of data that it
stores.
--export
Writes all items in the source or all items whose <luid> is
given into a directory if the --export parameter exists and is a
directory. The <luid> of each item is used as file name. Otherwise it
creates a new file under that name and writes the selected items
separated by the chosen delimiter string. stdout can be selected with
a dash.
The default delimiter are two newline characters for a blank line. This
works for vCard 3.0 and iCalendar 2.0, which never contain blank lines.
Because items may or may not end in a newline, as a special case the
initial newline of a delimiter is skipped if the item ends in a newline.
--import
Adds all items found in the directory or input file to the
source. When reading from a directory, each file is treated as one
item. Otherwise the input is split at the chosen delimiter. "none" as
delimiter disables splitting of the input.
--update
Overwrites the content of existing items. When updating from a
directory, the name of each file is taken as its luid. When updating
from file or stdin, the number of luids given on the command line
must match with the number of items in the input.
--delete-items
Removes the specified items from the source. Most backends print
some progress information about this, but besides that, no further
output is produced. Trying to remove an item which does not exist
typically leads to an ERROR message, but is not reflected in a
non-zero result of the command line invocation itself because the
situation is not reported as an error by backends (removal of
non-existent items is not an error in SyncML).