RSS Generation

[Webnet]

I'm looking for a way to generate RSS feeds. I have my own script but it consistently has problems. Perhaps there is a class or api where I can call a few functions and input my data to output a valid RSS feed?

[AnthonySterling]

What problems are you experiencing?

[Webnet]

Multiple. I can't get the author to show up, or the correct time format (which I think I have now actually). When I try to spread the feed to twitter it says I need a guid, which when I do put a GUID it breaks the rss feeds because it's not an actual link to our news.

At this point, I'd prefer to utilize the work of someone else who's already figured all of that out.

[AnthonySterling]

All those element are still going to be have to be supplied by you, regardless of library I'm afraid.

Post the code you have so far, I'm sure all it will take is a tweak-or-two.

[AnthonySterling]

What about this, I haven't tested it, but it should put you on the right track. :-)

class AtomFeed
{
    protected $aEntries = array();
    
    protected $aMeta = array();
    
    public function __construct($sTitle, $sLink, $sAuthor)
    {
        $this->aMeta = array(
            'title'        => $sTitle,
            'link'        => $sLink,
            'author'    => $sAuthor
        );
    }
    
    public function addEntry(AtomEntry $oEntry)
    {
        array_push($this->aEntries, $oEntry);
        return $this;
    }
    
    public function render($bWithHeader = false)
    {
        if(true === $bWithHeader && false === headers_sent())
        {
            header('Content-type: application/atom+xml');
        }
        $sEntriesXML = '';
        foreach ($this->aEntries as $oEntry)
        {
            $sEntriesXML .= $oEntry->render();
        }
        return sprintf(
            trim(
                '<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
                <feed xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2005/Atom">
                <title>%s</title> 
                <link href="%s"/>
                <updated>%s</updated>
                <author> 
                <name>%s</name>
                </author> 
                <id>urn:uuid:%s</id>
                %s
                </feed>'
            ),
            htmlentities($this->aMeta['title']),
            $this->aMeta['link'],
            date('c'),
            htmlentities($this->aMeta['author']),
            md5($this->aMeta['title'] . $this->aMeta['author']),
            $sEntriesXML
        );
    }
}
class AtomEntry
{
    protected $aMeta = array();
    
    public function __construct($sTitle, $sLink, $sSummary)
    {
        $this->aMeta = array(
            'title'        => $sTitle,
            'link'        => $sLink,
            'summary'    => $sSummary
        );
    }
    
    public function render()
    {
        return sprintf(
            trim(
                '<entry>
                    <title>%s</title>
                    <link href="%s"/>
                    <id>urn:uuid:%s</id>
                    <updated>%s</updated>
                    <summary>%s</summary>
                </entry>'
            ),
            htmlentities($this->aMeta['title']),
            $this->aMeta['link'],
            md5($this->aMeta['title'] . $this->aMeta['summary']),
            date('c'),
            htmlentities($this->aMeta['summary'])
        );
    }
}

Usage

$oFeed = new AtomFeed('My Feed', 'http://www.sitepoint.com/', 'SilverBulletUK');
$oFeed->addEntry(new AtomEntry('Article Name 0', 'http://www.sitepoint.com/article', 'My Summary 0'));
$oFeed->addEntry(new AtomEntry('Article Name 1', 'http://www.sitepoint.com/article', 'My Summary 1'));
$oFeed->addEntry(new AtomEntry('Article Name 2', 'http://www.sitepoint.com/article', 'My Summary 2'));
$oFeed->addEntry(new AtomEntry('Article Name 3', 'http://www.sitepoint.com/article', 'My Summary 3'));
$oFeed->addEntry(new AtomEntry('Article Name 4', 'http://www.sitepoint.com/article', 'My Summary 4'));
echo $oFeed->render(true); 

[Webnet]

Thanks for the example, but even that is missing things. I see some RSS feeds that have CDATA escaping and pubDate and fields like that. Here's what I've got:

<?php
/**
 * @class Tru.Feed.Rss
 * Creates 
 * @constructor
 * @param {Tru} $tru The base Tru object
 */
class TruFeedRss extends TruFeed {
    var $feed = "";
    /*===========================================*/
    /* Built In Functions
    /*===========================================*/
    function __construct (&$tru) {
        $this->tru = &$tru;
    }
    /*===========================================*/
    /* Public Functions
    /*===========================================*/
    public function create ($paramList) {
        $parameterList = array(
            "title",
            "link",
            "description"
        );
        if (!$this->tru->utility->checkKey($paramList, $parameterList)) {
            $this->tru->error->requireParameter(array(
                "call" => "Tru.Feed.Rss::create()",
                "supplied" => $paramList,
                "required" => $parameterList,
                "terminate" => true
            ));
            
            return false;
        }
        
        $paramList = $this->tru->apply(array(
            "updated" => time(),
            "language" => "en-us"
        ), $paramList);
        
        $paramList = $this->cleanParamList($paramList);
        
        $this->feed .= "<?xml version='1.0' encoding='utf-8'?>\n";
        $this->feed .= "    <rss version='2.0'>\n";
        $this->feed .= "        <channel>\n";
        $this->feed .= "        <title>".$paramList['title']."</title>\n";
        $this->feed .= "        <link>".$paramList['link']."</link>\n";
        $this->feed .= "        <description>".$paramList['description']."</description>\n";
        if (is_numeric($paramList["updated"])) {
            $this->feed .= "        <lastBuildDate>".date('D, d M Y H:i:s O', $paramList['updated'])."</lastBuildDate>\n";
        } else {
            $this->feed .= "        <lastBuildDate>".$paramList['updated']."</lastBuildDate>\n";
        }
        $this->feed .= "        <language>".$paramList['language']."</language>\n";
    }
    
    public function addItem ($paramList) {
        $parameterList = array(
            "title",
            "link",
            "description"
        );
        if (!$this->tru->utility->checkKey($paramList, $parameterList)) {
            $this->tru->error->requireParameter(array(
                "call" => "Tru.Feed.Rss::addItem()",
                "supplied" => $paramList,
                "required" => $parameterList,
                "terminate" => true
            ));
            
            return false;
        }
        
        $paramList = $this->cleanParamList($paramList);        
        
        $this->feed .= "        <item>\n";
        $this->feed .= "            <title>".$paramList['title']."</title>\n";
        $this->feed .= "            <link>".$paramList['link']."</link>\n";
        $this->feed .= "            <description>".$paramList['description']."</description>\n";
        
        if (array_key_exists("guid", $paramList)) {
            $this->feed .= "            <guid>".$paramList['guid']."</guid>\n";
        }
        if (is_numeric($paramList["updated"])) {
            $this->feed .= "        <pubDate>".date('D, d M Y H:i:s O', $paramList['updated'])."</pubDate>\n";
        } else {
            $this->feed .= "        <pubDate>".$paramList['updated']."</pubDate>\n";
        }
        
        $this->feed .= "        </item>\n";
    }
    
    public function get () {
        $this->feed .= "        </channel>\n";
        $this->feed .= "    </rss>";
        
        return $this->feed;
    }
    
    private function cleanParamList ($paramList) {
        $paramListModified = $this->tru->utility->removeKey($paramList, "updated");
        $paramListModified = $this->tru->utility->text->clean($paramListModified, array(
            "html" => true,
            "quote" => false,
            "slashes" => false,
            "script" => false,
            "truncate" => false
        ));
        $paramListModified["updated"] = $paramList["updated"];
        
        return $paramListModified;
    }
}
?>

$this->tru->utility->text->clean refers to a function which cleans unwanted elements as you can see in this case I don't want it to clean anything except html.

[MayaLocke]

What specifically are you trying to do? Are you trying to convert html to RSS or a database to RSS. If its the latter there are scripts like SQL2RSS that will dynamically update the feed as the database updates.

[som3on3]

You can find many classes out there who creates rss feed, check joomla for example