To remove vcard contact duplicates, comparing if two vcards are equal in .vcf file does not work with simple == vobject comparison

Question

    #!/usr/bin/env python2.7 

    import vobject

    abfile='/foo/bar/directory/file.vcf' #ab stands for address book  

    ablist = []

    with open(abfile) as source_file:
        for vcard in vobject.readComponents(source_file):
          ablist.append(vcard)         

    print ablist[0]==ablist[1]

The above code should return True but it does not because the vcards are considered different even though they are the same. One of the ultimate objectives is to find a way to remove duplicates from the vcard file. Bonus points: Is there a way to make the comparison compatible with using one of the fast ways to uniqify a list in Python such as:

    set(ablist) 

to remove duplicates? (e.g. convert the vcards to strings somehow...). In the code above len(set(ablist)) returns 2 and not 1 as expected...

In contrast, if instead of comparing the whole vcard we compare one component of it as in:

    print ablist[0].fn==ablist[1].fn

then we do see the expected behavior and receive True as response...

Here is the file contents used in the test (with only two identical vcards):

    BEGIN:VCARD
    VERSION:3.0
    FN:Foo_bar1
    N:;Foo_bar1;;;
    EMAIL;TYPE=INTERNET:[email protected]
    END:VCARD
    BEGIN:VCARD
    VERSION:3.0
    FN:Foo_bar1
    N:;Foo_bar1;;;
    EMAIL;TYPE=INTERNET:[email protected]
    END:VCARD

Answer 1

@Brian Barcelona, concerning your answer, just to let you know, instead of:

ablist = []

with open(abfile) as source_file:
    for vcard in vobject.readComponents(source_file):
      ablist.append(vcard)

You could do:

with open(abfile) as source_file:
    ablist = list(vobject.readComponents(source_file))

By the way, I have looked in the source code of this module and your solution is not guaranteed to work because different components of a vcard could be the same but not in the same order. I think the best way is for you to check each relevant component yourself.

Answer 2

I have found the following will work - the insight is to "serialize()" the vcard:

#!/usr/bin/env python2.7 

import vobject

abfile='/foo/bar/directory/file.vcf' #ab stands for address book  

ablist = []

with open(abfile) as source_file:
    for vcard in vobject.readComponents(source_file):
      ablist.append(vcard)         

print ablist[0].serialize()==ablist[1].serialize()

However, there should be a better way to do this... any help would be most welcomed!