Hi everyone,

I am not being lazy, honest!, but recently i've been getting such good answers from you guys.

I am about to develop the news section of my website which i would like to make available via an RSS/XML feed.

Now i'd rather get it right from the beginning.

So, how do i make the RSS feed?

I'm sure if you Google it, you'll get many answers to your question. I wouldn't know, since I've never made one myself, but I'm guessing you'll have to write an XML file, and probly a DTD also.

Read about RSS here (XML.com) and a more indepth specification here.

You need to know what tags a RSS can and should have, after that it's easy. After all, it's simply plain text and you can generate it as easily as outputting normal content on your own page. For example:

PHP Code:

<?php ob_start(); ?>

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<rss version="2.0">
    <channel>
        <title>MySite - The best site ever</title>
        <link>http://mysite.com</link>
        <description>The best site in the world!</description>
        <image>
            <url>http://mysite.com/mylogo.gif</url>
            <title>MySite.com Logo</title>
            <link>http://mysite.com</link>
            <width>100</width>
            <height>100</height>
        </image>

        <?php
        while($story = mysql_fetch_array($result))
        {
            ?>
            <item>
                <title><?php echo $story['title']; ?></title>
                <description><?php echo $story['desc']; ?></description>
                <link>http://mysite.com/read.php?id=<?php echo $story['storyid']; ?></link>
            </item>
            <?php
        }
        ?>
    </channel>
</rss>

<?php

$rss_doc = ob_get_clean();
ob_end_clean();

// Do what you want with $rss_doc. It would probably
// be a good idea to cache it so each call wouldn't need
// to generate a new doc each time.

// If you want to simply return the document, then you can
// get rid of the output buffering features

?>

thanks for that.

I'll let you know how i get a long.

I kind of tried that but it was a bit confusing.

What i would like to do is pull out the x most recent articles from my articles table and makes syndicatable.

From what i have seen files of this type tend to end in rdf rss , so how is this done in php, or should i ask where does php fit into it.

Ok, i found THIS ARTICLE and followed it step-by-step (with the obvious db modifications) and now i get THIS.

Any ideas?

Any file with php in it must be saved as a .php file not a .xml file.

The extension of the file as far as xml or rss is concerned is unimportant compared to the structure of the document.

Originally Posted by fambi

I am not being lazy, honest!, but recently i've been getting such good answers from you guys.

I am about to develop the news section of my website which i would like to make available via an RSS/XML feed.

Now i'd rather get it right from the beginning.

So, how do i make the RSS feed?

You can use FeedForAll http://www.feedforall.com it makes feed creation very easy. If you prefer to create the feed using a text editor there is a step by step tutorial for feed creation at http://www.make-rss-feeds.com

As far as displaying the feeds on your website, we have just released a free PHP script that will display the RSS feed as HTML details can be found at http://www.feedforall.com/free-php-script.htm

HTH
Sharon Housley