rss feed generation in php

[shyguy0507]

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Hiya,

Can anyone give me any tips on creating an rss feed using php from a database. As an example i'm trying to create an rss feed of the latest discounts added to less than full price and for it to update automatically every day.

Thanks

Jesse

[dmorison]

Hi Jesse,

It's actually quite straight forward. Assuming that you're OK with the database code (it's no different in a page that generates a feed to any other page) - the following should help get you started...

<?php
  // set the content type header to XML
  header("Content-Type: text/xml");
  // print the XML declaration
  print "<?xml version='1.0' encoding='UTF-8'?>";
  // print RSS header and channel info
  print "<rss>";
  print "<channel>";
  print "<title>Your Feed Title</title>";
  
  // now query your database to extract the items you want in
  // the feed into an array called, for example, $items

  foreach($items as $item)
  {
    print "<item>";
    print "<title>".htmlentities($item["title"])."</title>";
    print "<link>".htmlentities($item["link"])."</link>";
    print "<description>".htmlentities($item["description"])."</description>";
    print "</item>";
  }
  print "</channel>";
  print "</rss>";
?>

This would create a feed with the minimum required fields, but you could add all sorts of other information. The Wikipedia page is a good reference for the format:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RSS_(file_format)

Hope this helps!

[accelerator]

http://www.webref.eu/rss-feed-tools.php

Rgds

[shyguy0507]

Thank you - looks like I can manage it