A FILE TO CREATE A DOWNLOADABLE ICS FILE

make_my_ical_file.php

<?php  

// based on question on AskMefi:

// http://ask.metafilter.com/240123/Create-downloadable-iCal-files-in-PHPMySQLBootstrap

// validate the result at http://severinghaus.org/projects/icv/

// pass along an id on the url string, but make sure it's a number
// make_my_ical_file.php?id=45
$id = (isset($_GET[id])) ? (int)$_GET['id'] : 0;

// This is just dummy data
$event_row = array(
  array(
		'eventDate' => '2013-12-04',
		'starttime' => '2013-12-04 11:00:00',
		'endtime' => '2013-12-05 01:00:00',
		'eventName' => 'The Special Event Name!',
		'hotelSpace' => 'Hotel Example',
		'eventDescription' => 'This is a helluvan event',
		'timezone' => 'America/Chicago',
	),
);

// Set this to true to use real data
$use_database = false;

if ($use_database) {
	// actually run a query
	$query = "SELECT eventDate
			, eventStart
			, eventStart as starttime
			, eventEnd as endtime
			, eventName
			, hotelSpace
			, eventDescription
			, 'America/Chicago' as timezone
		FROM events
		WHERE id = {$id}";
	$result = @mysql_query($query);
	$event_row = array();
	// really should only be one result
	while ($row = mysql_fetch_assoc ($result)) {
		$event_row[] = $row;
	}
}

define("DATE_ICAL", "Ymd\THis");
// really there should be only one row
foreach ($event_row as $row) {
	$icalstarttime   = date(DATE_ICAL, strtotime( $row['starttime']));
	$icalendtime     = date(DATE_ICAL, strtotime( $row['endtime']));
	$eventid         = md5(uniqid(mt_rand(), true)) . "@" . $_SERVER['SERVER_NAME'];
	$dateStamp       = date(DATE_ICAL, strtotime("now"));
	$safe_event_name = preg_replace("/[^\da-z]/i", '_', trim(strtolower($row['eventName'])));

	$icalrows = array();	
	$icalrows[] = "BEGIN:VCALENDAR";
	$icalrows[] = "VERSION:2.0";
	$icalrows[] = "PRODID:-//hacksw/handcal//NONSGML v1.0//EN";
	$icalrows[] = "BEGIN:VEVENT";
	$icalrows[] = "UID:{$eventid}";
	$icalrows[] = "DTSTAMP:{$dateStamp}";
	$icalrows[] = "DTSTART;TZID={$row['timezone']}:{$icalstarttime}";
	$icalrows[] = "DTEND;TZID={$row['timezone']}:{$icalendtime}";
	$icalrows[] = "SUMMARY:{$row['eventName']} at {$row['eventDescription']} at {$row['hotelSpace']}";
	$icalrows[] = "END:VEVENT";
	$icalrows[] = "END:VCALENDAR";

	//you can set the Content-Type: to text/plain to debug
	//header('Content-type: text/plain; charset=utf-8');
	header("Content-Type: text/calendar; charset=utf-8");
	header("Content-Disposition: inline; filename={$safe_event_name}.ics");

	echo implode("\r\n", $icalrows);
}