How to Create and Send vCards with Go

Summary

Sharing contact details by copying text between apps is ineffective compared to sending a vCard, a structured data format supported by major operating systems and email clients. This tutorial demonstrates creating vCards in Go using the go-vcard package, which handles fields such as formatted name, structured name, street address, telephone number, email address, and URL. The code writes the vCard to a .vcf file with version 4.0 using the go-vcard encoder and constants from the package, exiting on failure. The vCard file is uploaded to Twilio Assets, a static file hosting service bundled with every Twilio account, to make it publicly accessible for the SMS. The Twilio Go SDK sends an SMS with a message body and the vCard URL as a media attachment via the Programmable Messaging API, allowing recipients to open it in their contacts app.

Takeaways

1. 1

   vCard is a structured data format for contact information supported by major operating systems and email clients, enabling organized sharing of details like name, phone, and address.

2. 2

   The go-vcard package in Go can encode vCard files with fields such as formatted name, structured name, street address, telephone number, email address, and URL.

3. 3

   Twilio Assets provides static file hosting to make vCard files publicly accessible for inclusion as media attachments in SMS messages sent via the Twilio Programmable Messaging API.

FAQ