[Evolution-users] "/:" instead of ":" in Contact Notes

[Pete Biggs]

> Evolution adds one backslash to contacts from GWS and two to those from
> kSuite. Apple Contacts adds only one to either source, but only since
> iPadOS 18.7. 
> 
I don't think Evolution (or the others) would "add" backslashes. The
issue is that in the CardDAV format the ':' character is special in
some places - it is the delimiter between a label and the data -
consequently in some places it needs to be escaped with a backslash
character.  In the NOTE: field though, after the initial colon in
"NOTE:" all characters are valid, so a ':' in the text doesn't need to
be escaped.  The exception to this is the backslash character - since
that is the escape character, it will need to be escaped itself -
although some interpretation of the standard may dispute this. 

The best thing is to try some tests.

First, if you remove the backslash character in Evolution and save it,
how does it look in other clients?

Second, try saving the contact in vCard format and look at the contents
of the NOTE: field.

I've just done some playing with a test contact on gmail.  If I create
a Note in the contact with the contents:

    Test : TEST  : NOTE:  \:    \\:

it is saved in a vCard as:

    NOTE:Test : TEST  : NOTE:  \\:    \\\\:

So you can see that the colons are not escaped, but the backslashes are
escaped.

As I said, this is for a gmail address book, it is possible that other
servers may themselves need to add escape characters (depending on
their backend storage) - add in to this the way that different clients
interpret the standards for this, and you get a confusing set of
results.  In fact looking at that contact in  the Gmail web client
itself gives:

   Test : TEST  : NOTE:  :    \:

i.e. it has interpreted the explicit '\' I inserted as an escape
character and not displayed it.

I suspect that each of the services and clients would say they are
doing the correct thing, and if you use one client and one service
consistently, it will "all just work".  But if you need to use a mix,
then I think the best course of action is to be aware of what is going
on and just turn a blind eye to these things - put it down to the
quirks of modern life and the intersection of different "standards".

If you really want, then file a bug in Evolution about inconsistent use
of backslashes and colons in contact notes and see if there are any
work arounds for specific server oddities.

P.