v3.0 dev

.github/workflows/linkcheck.yml

@@ -12,7 +12,7 @@ jobs:
       with:
         fail: true
         args: >-
-          --timeout 10
-          --max-retries 2
+          --timeout 20
+          --max-retries 3
           '**/*.md'
           '**/*.rst'

.gitignore

@@ -32,3 +32,5 @@ tests/docker-test-servers/baikal/baikal-backup/
 tests/docker-test-servers/*/baikal-backup/
 # But keep the pre-configured Specific directory for Baikal
 !tests/docker-test-servers/baikal/Specific/
+# Local test server configuration (may contain credentials)
+tests/caldav_test_servers.yaml

AI-POLICY.md

@@ -1,28 +1,59 @@
 # Policy on usage of Artifical Intelligence and other tools
 
+## Read this first
+
+The most important rule: Inform about it!
+
+If you've spent hours, perhaps a full day of your time writing up a
+pull request, then I sort of owe you something.  I should spend some
+of my time looking through the submission carefully, and if nothing
+else, I owe to be polite, respectful and guide you in the right
+direction or give a good explanation for why I think your pull request
+is pulling the project in the wrong direction.  A human being have
+feelings, I should be careful not to hurt your feelings.
+
+At the other hand, perhaps you've spent 30 seconds either doing `ruff
+check --fix ; gh pr create` or telling Claude to check what went wrong
+in the logs and submit a bugfix upstream.  Do I still owe
+you to spend time looking through the submission carefully and
+spending time being polite and caring about your feelings?
+
+Perhaps your pull request is just one out of many such "drive-by pull
+requests".  It doesn't scale for a maintainer to spent lots of time on
+each such pull request.  I should just accept or decline such requests
+rapidly with minimum effort.
+
+So it all boils down to this: Be honest about tool usage!
+
 ## Background
 
-From time to time I do get pull requests where the author has done
-little else than running some tool on the code and submitting it as a
-pull request.  Those pull requests may have value to the project, but
-it's dishonest to not be transparent about it; teaching me how to run
-the tool and integrating it into the CI workflow may have a bigger
-value than the changes provided by the tool.  Recently I've also
-started receiving pull requests with code changes generated by AI (and
-I've seen people posting screenshots of simple questions and answers
-from ChatGPT in forum discussions, without contributing anything else).
+The "30 second effort pull request" mentioned above may have value to
+the project, but it's dishonest to not be transparent about it.
+Sometimes, teaching me how to run the tool and integrating it into the
+CI workflow may have a bigger value than the changes provided by the
+tool.
 
 Starting in 2025-11, I've spent quite some time testing Claude.  I'm
 positively surprised, it's doing a much better job than what I had
 expected.  The AI may do things a lot faster, smarter and better than
 a good coder.  Sometimes.  Other times it may spend a lot of "tokens"
-and a long time coming up with sub-optimal solutions, or even
-solutions that doesn't work at all.  Perhaps at some time in the near
-future the AI will do the developer profession completely obsoleted -
-but as of 2026-02, my experiences is that the AI performs best when
-being "supervised" and "guided" by a good coder knowing the project.
+and a long time coming up with sub-optimal or really bad solutions.
+
+Perhaps at some time in the near future the AI will do the developer
+profession completely obsoleted - but as of 2026-02, my experiences is
+that the AI performs best when being "supervised" and "guided" by a
+good coder knowing the project.
+
+## Bugfixes are (most often) welcome
+
+Over the past month, playing with a "max" subscription with Claude,
+I've made it into a rule that when I stumble upon some weird bug in
+some software or libraries I'm using or dependent on, I always ask
+Claude to analyze the bug, check the outstanding issues in the
+project, either create a new issue or consider if there is anything of
+value to add to an existing issue, and come up with a pull-request.  Being a bit aware of the
 
-## The rules
+## General rules
 
 * Do **respect the maintainers time**.  If/when the maintainer gets
   overwhelmed by pull requests of questionable quality or pull

CHANGELOG.md

@@ -20,17 +20,21 @@ This project should adhere to [Semantic Versioning](https://semver.org/spec/v2.0
 
 Version 3.0 should be fully backward-compatible with version 2.x - but there are massive code changes in version 3.0:
 
-* "Black style" has been replaced with ruff.  This causes quite some changes in the code.
-* Version 3.0 introduces **full async support** using a Sans-I/O architecture. The same domain objects (Calendar, Event, Todo, etc.) now work with both synchronous and asynchronous clients. The async client uses niquests by default; httpx is also supported for projects that already have it as a dependency.
-* Quite some refactoring work has been done
-* Some work has been put down ensuring better consistency in the method names.  Version 3.0 should be backward-compatible with version 2.0, so the old methods still work, but are deprecated.
+* **Full async support** using a Sans-I/O architecture. The same domain objects (Calendar, Event, Todo, etc.) now work with both synchronous and asynchronous clients. The async client uses niquests by default; httpx is also supported for projects that already have it as a dependency.
+* **Sans-I/O architecture** -- internal refactoring separates protocol logic (XML building/parsing) from I/O into a layered architecture: protocol layer (`caldav/protocol/`), operations layer (`caldav/operations/`), and response handling (`caldav/response.py`). This enables code reuse between sync and async implementations and improves testability.
+* **Lazy imports** -- `import caldav` is now significantly faster due to PEP 562 lazy loading. Heavy dependencies (lxml, niquests, icalendar) are deferred until first use. (PR #621)
+* **API naming consistency** -- methods have been renamed for consistency. Server-fetching methods use `get_` prefix, capability checks use `supports_*()`. Old method names still work but are deprecated.
+* **Ruff replaces Black** -- code formatting now uses ruff instead of Black, causing cosmetic changes throughout the codebase.
+* **Expanded compatibility hints** -- server-specific workarounds added for Zimbra, Bedework, CCS (Apple CalendarServer), Davis, DAViCal, GMX, ecloud, Synology, Posteo, PurelyMail, and more.
+* Quite some other refactoring work has been done.
 
 ### Breaking Changes
 
 (Be aware that some of the 2.x minor-versions also tagged some "Potentially Breaking Changes")
 
 * **Minimum Python version**: Python 3.10+ is now required (was 3.8+).
 * **Test Server Configuration**: `tests/conf.py` has been removed and `conf_private.py` will be ignored.  See the Test Framework section below.
+* **Config file parse errors now raise exceptions**: `caldav.config.read_config()` now raises `ValueError` on YAML/JSON parse errors instead of logging and returning an empty dict. This ensures config errors are detected early.
 
 ### Deprecated
 
@@ -69,7 +73,7 @@ Additionally, direct `DAVClient()` instantiation should migrate to `get_davclien
 
 ### Added
 
-* **Full async API** - New `AsyncDAVClient` and async-compatible domain objects:
+* **Full async API** -- New `AsyncDAVClient` and async-compatible domain objects:
   ```python
   from caldav.async_davclient import get_davclient
 
@@ -79,45 +83,99 @@ Additionally, direct `DAVClient()` instantiation should migrate to `get_davclien
       for cal in calendars:
           events = await cal.get_events()
   ```
-* **Sans-I/O architecture** - Internal refactoring separates protocol logic from I/O:
-  - Protocol layer (`caldav/protocol/`): Pure functions for XML building/parsing
-  - Operations layer (`caldav/operations/`): High-level CalDAV operations
-  - This enables code reuse between sync and async implementations
+* **Sans-I/O architecture** -- Internal refactoring separates protocol logic from I/O:
+  - Protocol layer (`caldav/protocol/`): Pure functions for XML building/parsing with typed dataclasses (DAVRequest, DAVResponse, PropfindResult, CalendarQueryResult)
+  - Operations layer (`caldav/operations/`): Sans-I/O business logic for CalDAV operations (properties, search, calendar management, principal discovery)
+  - Response layer (`caldav/response.py`): Shared `BaseDAVResponse` for sync/async
+  - Data state (`caldav/datastate.py`): Strategy pattern for managing data representations (raw string, icalendar, vobject) -- avoids unnecessary parse/serialize cycles
+* **Lazy imports (PEP 562)** -- `import caldav` is now fast. Heavy dependencies (lxml, niquests, icalendar) are deferred until first use. https://github.com/python-caldav/caldav/pull/621
+* **`DAVObject.name` deprecated** -- use `get_display_name()` instead. The old `.name` property now emits `DeprecationWarning`.
 * Added python-dateutil and PyYAML as explicit dependencies (were transitive)
 * Quite some methods have been renamed for consistency and to follow best current practices.  See the deprecation section.
 * `Calendar` class now accepts a `name` parameter in its constructor, addressing a long-standing API inconsistency (https://github.com/python-caldav/caldav/issues/128)
-* **Data representation API** - New efficient data access via `CalendarObjectResource` properties (https://github.com/python-caldav/caldav/issues/613):
-  - `.icalendar_instance` - parsed icalendar object (lazy loaded)
-  - `.vobject_instance` - parsed vobject object (lazy loaded)
-  - `.data` - raw iCalendar string
+* **Data representation API** -- New efficient data access via `CalendarObjectResource` properties (https://github.com/python-caldav/caldav/issues/613):
+  - `.icalendar_instance` -- parsed icalendar object (lazy loaded)
+  - `.vobject_instance` -- parsed vobject object (lazy loaded)
+  - `.data` -- raw iCalendar string
+  - Context managers `edit_icalendar_instance()` and `edit_vobject_instance()` for safe mutable access
+  - `get_data()`, `get_icalendar_instance()`, `get_vobject_instance()` return copies for read-only access
   - Internal `DataState` class manages caching between formats
-* **CalendarObjectResource.id property** - Returns the UID of calendar objects (https://github.com/python-caldav/caldav/issues/515)
-* **calendar.searcher() API** - Factory method for advanced search queries (https://github.com/python-caldav/caldav/issues/590):
+* **CalendarObjectResource.id property** -- Returns the UID of calendar objects (https://github.com/python-caldav/caldav/issues/515)
+* **calendar.searcher() API** -- Factory method for advanced search queries (https://github.com/python-caldav/caldav/issues/590):
   ```python
   searcher = calendar.searcher()
   searcher.add_filter(...)
   results = searcher.search()
   ```
+* **`get_calendars()` and `get_calendar()` context managers** -- Module-level factory functions that create a client, fetch calendars, and clean up on exit:
+  ```python
+  with get_calendars(url="...", username="...", password="...") as calendars:
+      for cal in calendars:
+          ...
+  ```
+* **Base+override feature profiles** -- YAML config now supports inheriting from base feature profiles:
+  ```yaml
+  my-server:
+      features:
+          base: nextcloud
+          search.comp-type: unsupported
+  ```
+* **Feature validation** -- `caldav.config` now validates feature configuration and raises errors on unknown feature names
+* **URL space validation** -- `caldav.lib.url` now validates that URLs don't contain unquoted spaces
+* **Fallback for missing calendar-home-set** -- Client falls back to principal URL when `calendar-home-set` property is not available
+* **Load fallback for changed URLs** -- `CalendarObjectResource.load()` falls back to UID-based lookup when servers change URLs after save
 
 ### Fixed
 
 * RFC 4791 compliance: Don't send Depth header for calendar-multiget REPORT (clients SHOULD NOT send it, but servers MUST ignore it per §7.9)
+* Fixed `ssl_verify_cert` not passed through in `get_sync_client` and `get_async_client`
+* Fixed `_derive_from_subfeatures` partial-config derivation bug
+* Fixed feature name parsing when names include `compatibility_hints.` prefix
+* Fixed recursive `_search_with_comptypes` when `search.comp-type` is broken
+* Fixed pending todo search on servers with broken comp-type filtering
+* Fixed URL path quoting when extracting calendars from PROPFIND results
+* Removed spurious warning on URL path mismatch, deduplicated `get_properties`
+* Fixed `create-calendar` feature incorrectly derived as unsupported
+* Fixed various async test issues (awaiting sync calls, missing feature checks, authorization error handling)
+* Fixed `search.category` features to use correct `search.text.category` names
 
 ### Changed
 
 * Sync client (`DAVClient`) now shares common code with async client via `BaseDAVClient`
 * Response handling unified in `BaseDAVResponse` class
+* Search refactored to use generator-based Sans-I/O pattern -- `_search_impl` yields `(SearchAction, data)` tuples consumed by sync or async wrappers
 * Test configuration migrated from legacy `tests/conf.py` to new `tests/test_servers/` framework
+* Configuration system expanded: `get_connection_params()` provides unified config discovery with clear priority (explicit params > test server config > env vars > config file)
+* `${VAR}` and `${VAR:-default}` environment variable expansion in config values
+* Ruff replaces Black for code formatting
+* `caldav/objects.py` backward-compatibility shim removed (imports go directly to submodules)
 
 ### Test Framework
 
-* Fixed Nextcloud Docker test server tmpfs permissions race condition
-* Added deptry for dependency verification in CI
-* The test server framework has been refactored with a new `tests/test_servers/` module.  It provides **YAML-based server configuration**: see `tests/test_servers/__init__.py` for usage
+* **New `tests/test_servers/` module** -- Complete rewrite of test infrastructure:
+  - `TestServer` base class hierarchy (EmbeddedTestServer, DockerTestServer, ExternalTestServer)
+  - YAML-based server configuration (`tests/caldav_test_servers.yaml.example`)
+  - `ServerRegistry` for server discovery and lifecycle management
+  - `client_context()` and `has_test_servers()` helpers
+* **New Docker test servers**: CCS (Apple CalendarServer), DAViCal, Davis, Zimbra
+* **Updated Docker configs**: Baikal, Cyrus, Nextcloud, SOGo
 * Added pytest-asyncio for async test support
+* Added deptry for dependency verification in CI
+* Added lychee link-check workflow
+* Added `convert_conf_private.py` migration tool for old config format
+* Removed `tests/conf.py`, `tests/conf_baikal.py`, `tests/conf_private.py.EXAMPLE`
+* **New test suites**:
+  - `test_async_davclient.py` (821 lines) -- Async client unit tests
+  - `test_async_integration.py` (466 lines) -- Async integration tests
+  - `test_operations_*.py` (6 files) -- Operations layer unit tests
+  - `test_protocol.py` (319 lines) -- Protocol layer unit tests
+  - `test_lazy_import.py` (141 lines) -- PEP 562 lazy import verification
+* Fixed Nextcloud Docker test server tmpfs permissions race condition
 
 ### GitHub Pull Requests Merged
 
+* #621 - Lazy-load heavy dependencies to speed up import caldav
+* #622 - Fix overlong inline literal, replace hyphens with en-dashes
 * #607 - Add deptry for dependency verification
 
 ### GitHub Issues Closed
@@ -130,7 +188,25 @@ Additionally, direct `DAVClient()` instantiation should migrate to `get_davclien
 
 ### Security
 
-Nothing to report.
+* UUID1 usage in UID generation (`calendarobject_ops.py`) may embed the host MAC address in calendar UIDs. Since calendar events are shared with third parties, this is a privacy concern. Planned fix: switch to UUID4.
+
+### Compatibility Hints Expanded
+
+Server-specific workarounds have been significantly expanded. Profiles added or updated for:
+
+* **Zimbra** -- search.is-not-defined, delete-calendar, recurrences.count, case-sensitive search
+* **Bedework** -- save-load.journal, save-load.todo.recurrences.thisandfuture, search.recurrences.expanded.todo, search.time-range.alarm
+* **CCS (Apple CalendarServer)** -- save-load.journal unsupported, various search hints
+* **Davis** -- principal-search at parent level, mixed-calendar features
+* **GMX** -- rate-limit, basepath correction
+* **ecloud** -- create-calendar unsupported, search.is-not-defined, case-sensitive
+* **Synology** -- is-not-defined, wipe-calendar cleanup
+* **SOGo** -- save-load.journal ungraceful, case-insensitive, delete-calendar
+* **Posteo** -- search.combined-is-logical-and unsupported
+* **PurelyMail** -- search.time-range.todo ungraceful
+* **DAViCal** -- various search and sync hints
+* **Xandikos** -- freebusy-query now supported in v0.3.3
+* **Baikal/Radicale** -- case-sensitive search, principal-search features
 
 ## [2.2.6] - [2026-02-01]
 

MANIFEST.in

@@ -2,3 +2,5 @@ include COPYING.*
 include *.md
 recursive-include tests caldav
 exclude tests/conf_private.py
+exclude tests/caldav_test_servers.yaml
+exclude tests/tmp_caldav_test_servers.yaml

RELEASE-HOWTO.md

@@ -45,5 +45,5 @@ This is most likely not complete, but should explain some of the "silly" steps a
 * Forgetting to add new files to the git repo
 * Having checked out a branch or tag or something, and tagging that as the new release rather than the latest HEAD.
 * Forgetting to push to pypi, or pushing something else than the tagged revision to pypi
-* Pushing out junk files in the pypi-release (i.e. .pyc-files, log files, temp files, `tests/conf_private.py`, etc
+* Pushing out junk files in the pypi-release (i.e. .pyc-files, log files, temp files, `tests/conf_private.py`, `tests/caldav_test_servers.yaml`, etc
 * Not adding the release to the "github releases" (I don't care much about this feature, but apparently some people check there to find the latest release version)