What's the best way to model recurring events in a calendar application?

Question

I\'m building a group calendar application that needs to support recurring events, but all the solutions I\'ve come up with to handle these events seem like a hack. I can li

Answer 1

1. Keep track of a recurrence rule (probably based on iCalendar, per @Kris K.). This will include a pattern and a range (Every third Tuesday, for 10 occurrences).
2. For when you want to edit/delete a specific occurrence, keep track of exception dates for the above recurrence rule (dates where the event doesn't occur as the rule specifies).
3. If you deleted, that's all you need, if you edited, create another event, and give it a parent ID set to the main event. You can choose whether to include all of the main event's information in this record, or if it only holds the changes and inherits everything that doesn't change.

Note that if you allow recurrence rules that don't end, you have to think about how to display your now infinite amount of information.

Hope that helps!