Perl program for displaying RSS feed?

Alatar has asked for the wisdom of the Perl Monks concerning the following question:

I've googled unsuccesfully for this. What I really need is a simple perl program that will parse the xml output of an rss feed into standard html links. The xml is very basic, as follows:

  <?xml version="1.0" encoding="ISO-8859-1" ?> 
- <rdf:RDF xmlns:rdf="http://www.w3.org/1999/02/22-rdf-syntax-ns#" xml
+ns="http://purl.org/rss/1.0/">
- <channel rdf:about="http://www.shannonlan.com">
  <title>www.shannonlan.com</title> 
  <link>http://www.shannonlan.com/cgi-bin/index.cgi</link> 
  <description>www.shannonlan.com - News to Go</description> 
- <items>
- <rdf:Seq>
  <rdf:li resource="http://www.shannonlan.com/cgi-bin/index.cgi?action
+=viewnews&id=248" /> 
  <rdf:li resource="http://www.shannonlan.com/cgi-bin/index.cgi?action
+=viewnews&id=247" /> 
  <rdf:li resource="http://www.shannonlan.com/cgi-bin/index.cgi?action
+=viewnews&id=246" /> 
  <rdf:li resource="http://www.shannonlan.com/cgi-bin/index.cgi?action
+=viewnews&id=245" /> 
  <rdf:li resource="http://www.shannonlan.com/cgi-bin/index.cgi?action
+=viewnews&id=244" /> 
  <rdf:li resource="http://www.shannonlan.com/cgi-bin/index.cgi?action
+=viewnews&id=243" /> 
  <rdf:li resource="http://www.shannonlan.com/cgi-bin/index.cgi?action
+=viewnews&id=242" /> 
  <rdf:li resource="http://www.shannonlan.com/cgi-bin/index.cgi?action
+=viewnews&id=241" /> 
  <rdf:li resource="http://www.shannonlan.com/cgi-bin/index.cgi?action
+=viewnews&id=240" /> 
  <rdf:li resource="http://www.shannonlan.com/cgi-bin/index.cgi?action
+=viewnews&id=239" /> 
  </rdf:Seq>
  </items>
  </channel>
- <item rdf:about="http://www.shannonlan.com/cgi-bin/index.cgi?action=
+viewnews&id=248">
  <title>More B5 in the works?</title> 
  <link>http://www.shannonlan.com/cgi-bin/index.cgi?action=viewnews&id
+=248</link> 
  </item>
- <item rdf:about="http://www.shannonlan.com/cgi-bin/index.cgi?action=
+viewnews&id=247">
  <title>Babylon 5 Season 5 DVD Box Set Review</title> 
  <link>http://www.shannonlan.com/cgi-bin/index.cgi?action=viewnews&id
+=247</link> 
  </item>
- <item rdf:about="http://www.shannonlan.com/cgi-bin/index.cgi?action=
+viewnews&id=246">
  <title>Latest Trailer for Battle for Middle Earth</title> 
  <link>http://www.shannonlan.com/cgi-bin/index.cgi?action=viewnews&id
+=246</link> 
  </item>
- <item rdf:about="http://www.shannonlan.com/cgi-bin/index.cgi?action=
+viewnews&id=245">
  <title>Free Tribes and Tribes 2!</title> 
  <link>http://www.shannonlan.com/cgi-bin/index.cgi?action=viewnews&id
+=245</link> 
  </item>
- <item rdf:about="http://www.shannonlan.com/cgi-bin/index.cgi?action=
+viewnews&id=244">
  <title>ATi Unveils new Graphics Card</title> 
  <link>http://www.shannonlan.com/cgi-bin/index.cgi?action=viewnews&id
+=244</link> 
  </item>
- <item rdf:about="http://www.shannonlan.com/cgi-bin/index.cgi?action=
+viewnews&id=243">
  <title>SASSER virus!</title> 
  <link>http://www.shannonlan.com/cgi-bin/index.cgi?action=viewnews&id
+=243</link> 
  </item>
- <item rdf:about="http://www.shannonlan.com/cgi-bin/index.cgi?action=
+viewnews&id=242">
  <title>THG Shows Us How...</title> 
  <link>http://www.shannonlan.com/cgi-bin/index.cgi?action=viewnews&id
+=242</link> 
  </item>
- <item rdf:about="http://www.shannonlan.com/cgi-bin/index.cgi?action=
+viewnews&id=241">
  <title>First Unreal Tournament 2004 patch coming soon?</title> 
  <link>http://www.shannonlan.com/cgi-bin/index.cgi?action=viewnews&id
+=241</link> 
  </item>
- <item rdf:about="http://www.shannonlan.com/cgi-bin/index.cgi?action=
+viewnews&id=240">
  <title>FREE Softimage Experience for Half-Life 2</title> 
  <link>http://www.shannonlan.com/cgi-bin/index.cgi?action=viewnews&id
+=240</link> 
  </item>
- <item rdf:about="http://www.shannonlan.com/cgi-bin/index.cgi?action=
+viewnews&id=239">
  <title>EA Games: The Third Age</title> 
  <link>http://www.shannonlan.com/cgi-bin/index.cgi?action=viewnews&id
+=239</link> 
  </item>
  </rdf:RDF>
[download]

As you can see this is simply a set of Http Links. I was surprised to find that no parser of this sort appears to be available. I found several Javascript and PHP solutions, but none in Perl.

Oh, and just a proviso, I am running my site on a remote server so I can't install Perl Modules, everything needs to be pretty much standard.

Thanks,
Alatar

Comment on Perl program for displaying RSS feed? Download Code

Replies are listed 'Best First'.
Re: Perl program for displaying RSS feed? by crouchingpenguin (Priest) on May 07, 2004 at 13:03 UTC
Use XML::RSS installed locally within your home directory. Here is an example: `#!/usr/bin/perl use strict; use warnings; use XML::RSS; use lib './path/to/home/dir/perl/libs'; # optionally download via a url # or slurp in a file use LWP::Simple; my $url = "http://someurl/file.rss"; my $document = get($url); my $rss = new XML::RSS(Style => 'Debug'); $rss->parse($document); foreach my $item (@{$rss->{'items'}}) { print "<a href=\"$item->{link}\">$item->{title}</a>\n"; }` [download] cp ---- "Never be afraid to try something new. Remember, amateurs built the ark. Professionals built the Titanic."	[reply] [d/l]
Re: Perl program for displaying RSS feed? by Ven'Tatsu (Deacon) on May 07, 2004 at 13:47 UTC
I've tried quite a few modules for parsing RSS feeds. XML::Simple XML::RSS XML::RSS::Parser XML::RSS::Parser::Lite XML::RSS::Feed XML::RSSLite All of these do the job, but IIRC XML::RSS::Parser::Lite is the only one that does not use XML::Parser which requires C compiler to install it if it's not installed already. In the end I chose XML::RSSLite becaue it had the smallest memory footprint for the data I was using, which was critical for me, it may not be for you.	[reply]
Re: Perl program for displaying RSS feed? by saintmike (Vicar) on May 07, 2004 at 18:26 UTC
If you want to look at some really slick code doing that, merlyn's latest Perls of Wisdom column in the June 2004 issue of Linux Magazine features a nice tabbed RSS-displaying GUI. It's not available online yet (but will be eventually).	[reply]


laziness, impatience, and hubris
	PerlMonks