[%# # IMPORTANT NOTE # This documentation is generated automatically from source # templates. Any changes you make here may be lost. # # The 'docsrc' documentation source bundle is available for download # from http://www.template-toolkit.org/docs.html and contains all # the source templates, XML files, scripts, etc., from which the # documentation for the Template Toolkit is built. -%] [% META book = 'Modules' page = 'Plugin_XML_RSS' %] [% WRAPPER toc; INCLUDE tocitem title = 'SYNOPSIS'; INCLUDE tocitem title = 'PRE-REQUISITES'; INCLUDE tocitem title = 'DESCRIPTION'; INCLUDE tocitem title = 'AUTHORS'; INCLUDE tocitem title = 'VERSION'; INCLUDE tocitem title = 'COPYRIGHT'; INCLUDE tocitem title = 'SEE ALSO'; END %] [% WRAPPER section title='SYNOPSIS' -%]

        [% tt_start_tag %] USE news = XML.RSS($filename) [% tt_end_tag %]

        [% tt_start_tag %] FOREACH item = news.items [% tt_end_tag %]
           [% tt_start_tag %] item.title [% tt_end_tag %]
           [% tt_start_tag %] item.link  [% tt_end_tag %]
        [% tt_start_tag %] END [% tt_end_tag %]

[%- END %] [% WRAPPER section title='PRE-REQUISITES' -%]

This plugin requires that the XML::Parser and XML::RSS modules be installed. These are available from CPAN:

        http://www.cpan.org/modules/by-module/XML

[%- END %] [% WRAPPER section title='DESCRIPTION' -%]

This Template Toolkit plugin provides a simple interface to the XML::RSS module.

        [% tt_start_tag %] USE news = XML.RSS('mysite.rdf') [% tt_end_tag %]

It creates an XML::RSS object, which is then used to parse the RSS file specified as a parameter in the USE directive. A reference to the XML::RSS object is then returned.

An RSS (Rich Site Summary) file is typically used to store short news 'headlines' describing different links within a site. This example is extracted from http://slashdot.org/slashdot.rdf.

        <?xml version="1.0"?><rdf:RDF
        xmlns:rdf="http://www.w3.org/1999/02/22-rdf-syntax-ns#"
        xmlns="http://my.netscape.com/rdf/simple/0.9/">

          <channel>
        	<title>Slashdot:News for Nerds. Stuff that Matters.</title>
        	<link>http://slashdot.org</link>
        	<description>News for Nerds.  Stuff that Matters</description>
          </channel>

          <image>
        	<title>Slashdot</title>
        	<url>http://slashdot.org/images/slashdotlg.gif</url>
        	<link>http://slashdot.org</link>
          </image>

          <item>
        	<title>DVD CCA Battle Continues Next Week</title>
        	<link>http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=00/01/12/2051208</link>
          </item>

          <item>
        	<title>Matrox to fund DRI Development</title>
        	<link>http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=00/01/13/0718219</link>
          </item>

          <item>
        	<title>Mike Shaver Leaving Netscape</title>
        	<link>http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=00/01/13/0711258</link>
          </item>

        </rdf:RDF>

The attributes of the channel and image elements can be retrieved directly from the plugin object using the familiar dotted compound notation:

        [% tt_start_tag %] news.channel.title  [% tt_end_tag %]
        [% tt_start_tag %] news.channel.link   [% tt_end_tag %]
        [% tt_start_tag %] news.channel.etc... [% tt_end_tag %]

        [% tt_start_tag %] news.image.title    [% tt_end_tag %]
        [% tt_start_tag %] news.image.url      [% tt_end_tag %]
        [% tt_start_tag %] news.image.link     [% tt_end_tag %]
        [% tt_start_tag %] news.image.etc...   [% tt_end_tag %]

The list of news items can be retrieved using the 'items' method:

        [% tt_start_tag %] FOREACH item = news.items [% tt_end_tag %]
           [% tt_start_tag %] item.title [% tt_end_tag %]
           [% tt_start_tag %] item.link  [% tt_end_tag %]
        [% tt_start_tag %] END [% tt_end_tag %]

[%- END %] [% WRAPPER section title='AUTHORS' -%]

This plugin was written by Andy Wardley <abw@kfs.org>, inspired by an article in Web Techniques by Randal Schwartz <merlyn@stonehenge.com>.

The XML::RSS module, which implements all of the functionality that this plugin delegates to, was written by Jonathan Eisenzopf <eisen@pobox.com>.

[%- END %] [% WRAPPER section title='VERSION' -%]

2.29, distributed as part of the Template Toolkit version 2.06, released on 07 November 2001.

[%- END %] [% WRAPPER section title='COPYRIGHT' -%]

      Copyright (C) 1996-2001 Andy Wardley.  All Rights Reserved.
      Copyright (C) 1998-2001 Canon Research Centre Europe Ltd.

This module is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the same terms as Perl itself.

[%- END %] [% WRAPPER section title='SEE ALSO' -%]

[% ttlink('Template::Plugin', 'Template::Plugin') -%], [% ttlink('XML::RSS', 'XML::RSS') -%], [% ttlink('XML::Parser', 'XML::Parser') -%]

[%- END %]