[Kolab-devel] [issue3586] number of recurrences/occurrences in format docs misleading

[Thomas Arendsen Hein]

New submission from Thomas Arendsen Hein <thomas at intevation.de>:

This is probably an issue about misleading Kolab format docs yielding a freebusy
and web client implementation differing from the probably correct implementation
in kontact, so I added only few kontact people to nosy.

Assigning to Bernhard to decide what should be the correct reading, Martin might
know, too.

Tested with Kolab Server 2.2.1 and Kontact Version 1.2.9 (enterprise35
20090417.955394) (probably applies to enterprise4, too)

While testing server freebusy and web client of Kolab Server 2.2.1 I noticed
that both behave differently than kontact regarding recurring events with weekly
cycle, more than one day of week and limited number of
(recurrences|occurrences). When looking at the Kolab Storage Format document
2.0rc7 I think kontact might be the one who is wrong.

Example:

In kontact create an event, enable recurrence, set recurrence rule to weekly and
repeat every week on Mon/Wed/Fri/Sun.
Set "Recurrence Range" to "End after 3 occurrence(s)".

Now kontact displays this event on three days (e.g. Mon+Wed+Fri), but when
looking at the freebusy list or the web client the event lasts three weeks (i.e.
on 12 different days).

The corresponding event dialog in the web client says:
Recurrence:
 Weekly: Recurs every 1 week(s) on: Mo  We  Fr  Su
 Recur Until: 3 recurrences

The Kolab XML object generated by kontact contains:
 <recurrence cycle="weekly" >
  <interval>1</interval>
  <day>monday</day>
  <day>wednesday</day>
  <day>friday</day>
  <day>sunday</day>
  <range type="number" >3</range>
 </recurrence>

The format specification contains in 4.2.1. Recurrence:

| weekly: Interval specifies "every X weeks". Day can be monday, tuesday
| wednesday, thursday, friday, saturday, and sunday. There can be 1 to 7 of
| these days.
|
| The range must also be present. This can be "none", which means a never
| ending recurrence. Or "number", which specifies the number of times this
| recurrence happens (before exclusions are subtracted).

To me this reads as if freebusy and web client do it right, because the number
of recurrences is specified, not the number of occurrences. But when looking
at 4.2.2. Recurrence examples it seems as if kontact does it correctly:

| Recurrence weekly on mondays and thursdays, until 5 has happened. No
| exclusions:
|
|         <recurrence cycle="weekly">
|           <interval>3</interval>
|           <day>monday</day>
|           <day>thursday</day>
|           <range type="number">5</range>
|         </recurrence>
|
| Same one, but this time with one exclusion. Note that the actual ending is
| the same, meaning in reality only four incidences happened:
|
|         <recurrence cycle="weekly">
|           <interval>3</interval>
|           <day>monday</day>
|           <day>thursday</day>
|           <range type="number">5</range>
|           <exclusion>2005-05-04</exclusion>
|         </recurrence>

The "incidences" in this text indicates that the number of occurrences is
meant and not the number of repeats of the recurrence section.

So my guess is that the format docs have to be clarified and the freebusy and
web client code have to be corrected.

Important: I did not verify invitations, I saved the event in IMAP and then
looked at it by using freebusy URL and web client. So invitations have to be
tested, too!

----------
assignedto: bernhard
messages: 19885
nosy: allen, bernhard, martin, thomas, till, wilde, wrobel
priority: bug
status: unread
title: number of recurrences/occurrences in format docs misleading
topic: format, freebusy, kde client, web client
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Kolab issue tracker <kolab-issues at intevation.de>
<https://www.intevation.de/roundup/kolab/issue3586>
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