RSS feed

Function

RSS feeds are an easy way to be notified about new content from various websites, and they are easy to implement in your website.

How an RSS Feed Works

Some websites with frequently changing content like blogs, podcasts, or video sharing sites, will have a link to a file containing the RSS feed and its items.

When there is new content, a new item can be added to the RSS feed, and old items can optionally be removed from the RSS feed. A user's feed reader can check an RSS feed for new items and notify the user about them or organize them.

Writing an RSS Feed

RSS feeds are written as XML (extensible markup language) files, so they can be written and served similar to HTML webpages.

We will start by creating a file for our RSS feed. Make sure the file name ends with .rss or .xml. Then, write the following code in the file:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" ?>
<rss version="2.0">
    <channel>
    </channel>
</rss>

The <rss> tag specifies that there is an RSS feed in between the <rss> and </rss> tags. version="2.0" specifies that version 2.0 of RSS is used. The items in an RSS feed go in between the <channel> and </channel> tags.

Title, Description, and Link

Now we will write a title and description for our RSS feed, as well as a link to the webpage that the RSS feed goes with. In this example, we will be writing an RSS feed for a blog called Trevor's Blog.

In between the <channel> and </channel> tags, the <title> tag will be used to label the feed as Trevor's Blog. The <description> and <link> tags are used for the description of the feed and a link to the corresponding webpage.

<channel>
   <title>Trevor's Blog</title>
   <description>Trevor's writings and ideas</description>
   <link>https://example.org/blog</link>
</channel>

< img src="/pix/rss-01.png" alt=“Trevor’s blog feed” link="/pix/rss-01.png" >

Feed Items

Now we will add items to the RSS feed. These items are listed in the user's feed reader and can represent different content on a page such as blog posts or videos. In this example, there is a blog post called RSS is simple!.

The <item> tag is used to add items to the RSS feed. An item is given a title using the <title> tag to label the item. The item will have a link to its webpage using the <link> tag and an item description using the <description> tag.

The date and time of an item can be specified using the <pubDate> tag. The date and time must follow a specific format. In the example below, the item was posted on Friday, November 6, 2023 at 4:45 PM in the -0400 time zone.

<item>
	<title>RSS is simple!</title>
	<link>https://example.org/blog/2023-11-2-rss</link>
	<description>RSS is a good notification system.</description>
	<pubDate>Fri, 1 Oct 2023 16:29:00 -0500</pubDate>
 </item>