Evaluate if iCal `event` is currently in progress

August 5, 2022

Im currently using a library called biweekly to parse iCal events in java. I have no issue swapping libraries if a better solution is present so all java related solutions would be welcome.

Im trying to create a function that checks an iCal schedule to work out if any events are currently in progress / active.

Biweekly helped cleanly parse the iCal schedule events like this:


List<ICalendar> icals = Biweekly.parse(schedule).all();

for (ICalendar ical : icals) {

    for (VEvent event : ical.getEvents()) {

        // I need to compute if the event is currently active

    }
}

We found an example that helps get the events as a DateIterator but we can’t as yet connect that to knowing if an event is currently active.


TimezoneInfo tzInfo = ical.getTimezoneInfo();

DateStart dateStart = event.getDateStart();

TimeZone timezone;
if (tzInfo.isFloating(dateStart)){
    timezone = TimeZone.getDefault();
} else {
    TimezoneAssignment timezoneAssignment = tzInfo.getTimezone(dateStart);
    timezone = (timezoneAssignment == null) ? TimeZone.getTimeZone("UTC") : 
    timezoneAssignment.getTimeZone();
}

DateIterator it = event.getDateIterator(timezone);

>Solution :

As discussed in comments, it seems the method you’re looking for is getStatus() of the class VEvent:

/**
 * Gets the status of the event.
 * @return the status or null if not set
 * @see <a href="http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc5545#page-92">RFC 5545
 * p.92-3</a>
 * @see <a href="http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc2445#page-88">RFC 2445
 * p.88-9</a>
 * @see <a href="http://www.imc.org/pdi/vcal-10.doc">vCal 1.0 p.35-6</a>
 */
public Status getStatus() {
    return getProperty(Status.class);
}

GitHub documentation: https://github.com/mangstadt/biweekly/blob/master/src/main/java/biweekly/component/VEvent.java#L501.