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<sect1 id="zend.feed.consuming-rss">
    <title>Consuming an RSS Feed</title>
    <para>
        Reading an RSS feed is as simple as instantiating a <classname>Zend_Feed_Rss</classname>
        object with the URL of the feed:
    </para>
    <programlisting language="php"><![CDATA[
$channel = new Zend_Feed_Rss('http://rss.example.com/channelName');
]]></programlisting>
    <para>
        If any errors occur fetching the feed, a <classname>Zend_Feed_Exception</classname> will be
        thrown.
    </para>

    <para>
        Once you have a feed object, you can access any of the standard RSS "channel" properties
        directly on the object:
    </para>
    <programlisting language="php"><![CDATA[
echo $channel->title();
]]></programlisting>
    <para>
        Note the function syntax. <classname>Zend_Feed</classname> uses a convention of treating
        properties as XML object if they are requested with variable "getter" syntax
        (<code>$obj->property</code>) and as strings if they are access with method syntax
        (<code>$obj->property()</code>). This enables access to the full text of any individual node
        while still allowing full access to all children.
    </para>

    <para>
        If channel properties have attributes, they are accessible using PHP's array syntax:
    </para>
    <programlisting language="php"><![CDATA[
echo $channel->category['domain'];
]]></programlisting>
    <para>
        Since XML attributes cannot have children, method syntax is not necessary for accessing
        attribute values.
    </para>

    <para>
        Most commonly you'll want to loop through the feed and do something with its entries.
        <classname>Zend_Feed_Abstract</classname> implements PHP's <code>Iterator</code> interface,
        so printing all titles of articles in a channel is just a matter of:
    </para>
    <programlisting language="php"><![CDATA[
foreach ($channel as $item) {
    echo $item->title() . "\n";
}
]]></programlisting>
    <para>
        If you are not familiar with RSS, here are the standard elements you can expect to be
        available in an RSS channel and in individual RSS items (entries).
    </para>

    <para>
        Required channel elements:
    </para>

    <para>
        <itemizedlist>
            <listitem>
                <para><code>title</code> - The name of the channel</para>
            </listitem>
            <listitem>
                <para>
                    <code>link</code> - The URL of the web site corresponding to the channel
                </para>
            </listitem>
            <listitem>
                <para><code>description</code> - A sentence or several describing the channel</para>
            </listitem>
        </itemizedlist>
    </para>

    <para>
        Common optional channel elements:
    </para>

    <para>
        <itemizedlist>
            <listitem>
                <para>
                    <code>pubDate</code> - The publication date of this set of content, in RFC 822
                    date format
                </para>
            </listitem>
            <listitem>
                <para><code>language</code> - The language the channel is written in</para>
            </listitem>
            <listitem>
                <para>
                    <code>category</code> - One or more (specified by multiple tags) categories the
                    channel belongs to
                </para>
            </listitem>
        </itemizedlist>
    </para>

    <para>
        RSS <code>&lt;item&gt;</code> elements do not have any strictly required elements. However,
        either <code>title</code> or <code>description</code> must be present.
    </para>

    <para>
        Common item elements:
    </para>

    <para>
        <itemizedlist>
            <listitem>
                <para><code>title</code> - The title of the item</para>
            </listitem>
            <listitem>
                <para><code>link</code> - The URL of the item</para>
            </listitem>
            <listitem>
                <para><code>description</code> - A synopsis of the item</para>
            </listitem>
            <listitem>
                <para><code>author</code> - The author's email address</para>
            </listitem>
            <listitem>
                <para>
                    <code>category</code> - One more categories that the item belongs to
                </para>
            </listitem>
            <listitem>
                <para><code>comments</code> - URL of comments relating to this item</para>
            </listitem>
            <listitem>
                <para>
                    <code>pubDate</code> - The date the item was published, in RFC 822 date format
                </para>
            </listitem>
        </itemizedlist>
    </para>

    <para>
        In your code you can always test to see if an element is non-empty with:
    </para>
    <programlisting language="php"><![CDATA[
if ($item->propname()) {
    // ... proceed.
}
]]></programlisting>

    <para>
        If you use <code>$item->propname</code> instead, you will always get an empty object which
        will evaluate to <constant>TRUE</constant>, so your check will fail.
    </para>

    <para>
        For further information, the official RSS 2.0 specification is available at: <ulink
            url="http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss">http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss</ulink>
    </para>
</sect1>
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