Feedjira
The Feedjira Ruby Gem
Feedjira (formerly Feedzirra) is a Ruby gem for fetching and parsing RSS feeds. Version 2.0 was recently released.
Getting Started
Feedjira is tested with Ruby version 1.9.3 and 2.x so like any Ruby gem, the first step is to install the gem:
1 | $ gem install feedjira |
Or add it to your Gemfile:
1 | gem 'feedjira' |
Fetching and Parsing
For many users, the fetch_and_parse
method is what they use Feedjira for. This
method takes a url and returns a Parser object:
1 2 3 | url = "http://feedjira.com/blog/feed.xml" feed = Feedjira::Feed.fetch_and_parse url # => #<Feedjira::Parser::Atom...> |
These feed objects have both the meta data for a feed and an entries
collection that contains all the entries that were found:
1 2 3 4 5 6 | feed.title # => "Feedjira Blog" feed.url # => "http://feedjira.com/blog" feed.entries # returns an array of Entry objects # => [<Feedjira::Feed::Entry ...>, <Feedjira::Feed::Entry ...>, ...] |
These entry objects contain the data parsed from the feed XML:
1 2 3 4 5 | entry = feed.entries.first entry.title # => "Announcing verison 1.0" entry.url # => "http://feedjira.com/blog/2014-02-12-announcing-version-10.html" |
Just Parsing
The parsing functionality of Feedjira has been exposed so that it can be used in isolation:
1 2 3 4 | xml = Faraday.get(url).body feed = Feedjira::Feed.parse xml feed.entries.first.title # => "Announcing verison 1.0" |
Adding a feed parsing class
When determining which parser to use for a given XML document, the following list of parser classes is used:
Feedjira::Parser::RSSFeedBurner
Feedjira::Parser::GoogleDocsAtom
Feedjira::Parser::AtomFeedBurner
Feedjira::Parser::Atom
Feedjira::Parser::ITunesRSS
Feedjira::Parser::RSS
You can insert your own parser at the front of this stack by calling
add_feed_class
, like this:
1 | Feedjira::Feed.add_feed_class MyAwesomeParser |
Now when you fetch_and_parse
, MyAwesomeParser
will be the first one to get a
chance to parse the feed.
If you have the XML and just want to provide a parser class for one parse, you
can specify that using parse_with
:
1 | Feedjira::Feed.parse_with MyAwesomeParser, xml |
Adding attributes to all feeds types / all entries types
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 | # Add the generator attribute to all feed types Feedjira::Feed.add_common_feed_element('generator') Feedjira::Feed.fetch_and_parse("http://www.pauldix.net/atom.xml").generator # => 'TypePad' # Add some GeoRss information Feedjira::Feed.add_common_feed_entry_element('geo:lat', :as => :lat) Feedjira::Feed.fetch_and_parse("http://www.earthpublisher.com/georss.php").entries.each do |e| p "lat: #[e.lat}, long: #{e.long]" end |
Adding attributes to only one class
If you want to add attributes for only one class you simply have to declare them in the class
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 | # Add some GeoRss information require 'lib/feedzirra/parser/rss_entry' class Feedjira::Parser::RSSEntry element 'geo:lat', :as => :lat element 'geo:long', :as => :long end # Fetch a feed containing GeoRss info and print them Feedjira::Feed.fetch_and_parse("http://www.earthpublisher.com/georss.php").entries.each do |e| p "lat: #{e.lat}, long: #{e.long}" end |
Testing
Feedjira uses faraday to perform requests, so testing Feedjira is really about stubbing out faraday requests.
Projects that use Feedjira
Feedjira is used in some awesome projects around the web - from RSS readers to add-ons and everything in between. Here are some of them:
Feedbin: Feedbin bills itself as a fast, simple RSS reader that delivers a great reading experience. It’s a paid RSS reader that integrates with mobile apps and it even has a fully featured API!
Stringer: Stringer is a self-hosted, anti-social RSS reader. It’s an open-source project that’s easy to deploy to any host, there’s even a one-click button to deploy on Heroku.
BlogFeeder: BlogFeeder is a paid Shopify App that makes it easy for you to import any external blog into your Shopify store. It helps improve your store’s SEO and keeps your blogs in sync, plus a lot more.
Feedbunch: Feedbunch is an open source feed reader built to fill the hole left by Google Reader. It aims to support all features of Google Reader and actually improve on others.
The Old Reader: The Old Reader advertises as the ultimate social RSS reader. It’s free to start and also has a paid premium version. There’s an API and it integrates with many different mobile apps.
Solve for All: Solve for All combines search engine and feed parsing while protecting your privacy. It’s even extendable by the community!
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