What's the difference between CREATED and DTSTAMP in the iCalendar format?

Svish_39321 0
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In the iCalendar spec I find the following about DTSTAMP:

This property is different than the "CREATED" and "LAST-MODIFIED" properties. These two properties are used to specify when the particular calendar data in the calendar store was created and last modified. This is different than when the iCalendar object representation of the calendar service information was created or last modified.

What does that mean? I'm storing events in a database and want to generate an iCal file. I assume CREATED should be set to whenever the event was created, but what should I set DTSTAMP to?

icalendar
3 Answers

I was looking for an answer to this question, and although the answers here helped me to understand, i also found the information in the iCalendar.org site helpful.

In short: Created states when the event was created, DTStamp is the timestamp of a modification both when "Method" property is specified or not, and LastModified is the timestamp of a modification of an event. See that LastModified is same as DTStamp plus this last one also changes in case of "Method" property set.

I just share the original here:

Created:

This property specifies the date and time that the calendar information was created by the calendar user agent in the calendar store.

DTStamp:

In the case of an iCalendar object that specifies a "METHOD" property, this property specifies the date and time that the instance of the iCalendar object was created. In the case of an iCalendar object that doesn't specify a "METHOD" property, this property specifies the date and time that the information associated with the calendar component was last revised in the calendar store.

LastModified:

This property specifies the date and time that the information associated with the calendar component was last revised in the calendar store.

user_74322420
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