Some issues when creating my own feeds

[Gerrit Kuilder]

H All,

I am new to this list and have a couple of questions, apologies if they
have been asked too often..

I am creating some feeds with perl and XML::RSS. They validate through
various rss validators and I can read them with RSSReader and
Sharpreader, they also get updated through these two.

Mozilla Thunderbird ( 1.02 and 1.5 RC1) somehow does not update them
automaticly and even a refresh or get new articles does not help. The
only thing I can do is unsubscribe to the feed and subscribe again.

I also try to put one feed on a webpage (a wordpress blog) with a
plugin, this plugin pulls in other (the standard delivered feed) (this
plugin is disabled right now) but all my trial versions generate an error.

The feed: http://test.kuilder.net/lastplayed.rdf

This goes through an apache log file and pulls out the last played songs
that I play through a web server.

I know that there are a few things not according to the standard, for
example the titles are longer than 100 characters.

I also re-create the whole feed from scratch so all the items get a new
timestamp, even if they were in the feed previously
Sharpreader marks as new only the ones that weren't in the feed before.
RSSReader, displayes all ten as new, lot of repeats, I kinda think that
is correct behaviour but that means extra work for me.

My main reference is O'reilly's Content Syndication with RSS , my
edition is from march 2003.

I would like to generate more feeds, especially in the area of parsing
logs to keep an easier eye on them and some other feeds for fun and
profit but I seem to miss some basic information.

So any good pointers to information on how feeds REALLY should be
created?, books, sites etc. And some pointers on what I am doing wrong
would be nice too.

Regards,

Gerrit Kuilder
--
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Med venlig hilsen

Gerrit Kuilder
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[James Holderness]

Post by Gerrit Kuilder
I am creating some feeds with perl and XML::RSS. They validate through
various rss validators and I can read them with RSSReader and
Sharpreader, they also get updated through these two.
Mozilla Thunderbird ( 1.02 and 1.5 RC1) somehow does not update them
automaticly and even a refresh or get new articles does not help. The
only thing I can do is unsubscribe to the feed and subscribe again.

This is just a wild guess, but I suspect that Thunderbird may not be capable
of handling updating entries. It wouldn't surprise me if there were many
aggregators that had this problem. Basically once they see an id that
they've already retrieved they'll ignore it assuming it's a duplicate.

Post by Gerrit Kuilder
This goes through an apache log file and pulls out the last played songs
that I play through a web server.

This is not really an ideal scenario for an RSS feed. What happens when you
change from a 10 track CD to an 8 track CD? From what I can make out you
seem to be reusing the same set of IDs all the time. So the feed for the new
CD will share the same IDs 1 to 8 as the feed for the old CD. Thus in an
aggregator, the first 8 tracks will update to reflect the contents of the
new CD, but tracks 9 and 10 will still be showing the entries from the first
CD.

A better solution may be to provide a whole new set of IDs for each CD. Then
in an aggregator, you'll see a new set of entries each time a CD is changed.
Tracks from previous CDs will also be visible in the list, but they'll all
be neatly grouped together - nothing will ever be overwritten.

And yet another alternative would be to include one entry in the feed for
each CD and make the content of the entry list all the tracks of the CD.
Every time the the CD changes, the feed gets a new entry.

Post by Gerrit Kuilder
I also re-create the whole feed from scratch so all the items get a new
timestamp, even if they were in the feed previously
Sharpreader marks as new only the ones that weren't in the feed before.
RSSReader, displayes all ten as new, lot of repeats, I kinda think that
is correct behaviour but that means extra work for me.

Why include a date at all? It's not required and it's obviously not serving
any real purpose the way you're currently using.

Regards
James



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[Gerrit Kuilder]

Hello James/All

Post by James Holderness

Post by Gerrit Kuilder
Mozilla Thunderbird ( 1.02 and 1.5 RC1) somehow does not update them
automaticly and even a refresh or get new articles does not help. The
only thing I can do is unsubscribe to the feed and subscribe again.

This is just a wild guess, but I suspect that Thunderbird may not be capable
of handling updating entries. It wouldn't surprise me if there were many
aggregators that had this problem. Basically once they see an id that
they've already retrieved they'll ignore it assuming it's a duplicate.

I was thinking the same when I woke up this morning and it makes sense.
I can fix that but for further feeds I will be creating it might become
(my) issue , see further below.

Post by James Holderness

Post by Gerrit Kuilder
This goes through an apache log file and pulls out the last played songs
that I play through a web server.

This is not really an ideal scenario for an RSS feed. What happens when you
change from a 10 track CD to an 8 track CD? From what I can make out you
seem to be reusing the same set of IDs all the time. So the feed for the new
CD will share the same IDs 1 to 8 as the feed for the old CD. Thus in an
aggregator, the first 8 tracks will update to reflect the contents of the
new CD, but tracks 9 and 10 will still be showing the entries from the first
CD.
A better solution may be to provide a whole new set of IDs for each CD. Then
in an aggregator, you'll see a new set of entries each time a CD is changed.
Tracks from previous CDs will also be visible in the list, but they'll all
be neatly grouped together - nothing will ever be overwritten.
And yet another alternative would be to include one entry in the feed for
each CD and make the content of the entry list all the tracks of the CD.
Every time the the CD changes, the feed gets a new entry.

To make it clear, the log logs individual mp3's played and I have a
script that creates a randomized playlist, a bit like a radio but wiith
only the music I like (and no comercials).
I think I have to try and push/pop items in the feed, making sure they
get a unique id. As I have not looked at cerating feeds for awhile I
have not tried it.

Post by James Holderness

Post by Gerrit Kuilder
I also re-create the whole feed from scratch so all the items get a new
timestamp, even if they were in the feed previously
Sharpreader marks as new only the ones that weren't in the feed before.
RSSReader, displayes all ten as new, lot of repeats, I kinda think that
is correct behaviour but that means extra work for me.

Why include a date at all? It's not required and it's obviously not serving
any real purpose the way you're currently using.

In my thinking the date was more important that the link of an item,
which creates a new problem for another feed I am working on: A parsing
of a maillog presenting only the most relevant information of that log
(unknown users/rejected mail/spam messages caught)
I have this working as a script that creates html output, a cron job
that runs every 5 minutes and if the maillog was updated it recreates
the web page. The rss version does basicly the same thing now but I
foresee some issues
Oh well, I will fix my mp3feed first, then get back to the maillog, then
think about other feeds.

This brings up the following question (with me at least): Is what I am
trying to do suitable for RSS, IE: the feed IS the message.

Back to the drawing board, thanks for the input.

Regards,

Gerrit Kuilder

Post by James Holderness
Regards
James
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Med venlig hilsen

Gerrit Kuilder
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[James Holderness]

Post by Gerrit Kuilder
To make it clear, the log logs individual mp3's played and I have a
script that creates a randomized playlist, a bit like a radio but wiith
only the music I like (and no comercials).

Oh ok. I'm sorry I misunderstood what you were doing. When I looked at the
feed all I saw was a list of entries that appeared to be showing the content
of a full CD.

Post by Gerrit Kuilder
I think I have to try and push/pop items in the feed, making sure they
get a unique id. As I have not looked at cerating feeds for awhile I
have not tried it.

I'm still not exactly sure what you want your feed to contain. If it's a
reflection of what's in your logfile then that should be easy. Just keep
adding new entries to the top of the feed as they appear in the log. Each
entry should always have a new unique id - there should never be a need for
any updates. What an aggregator will see is a list of entries representing
all the MP3s you have played in the order you played them. A date/time would
actually be quite useful for this kind of format (assuming each log entry
has a date/time associated with it).

However if you want your feed to be a reflection of your current playlist
then that's more complicated. An RSS feed is typically a window onto a
continuously updating stream of entries. A playlist does not really fall
into this catagory. What you'd want would be more like a fixed list that's
replaced in its entirety on every update. While there have been extensions
proposed to RSS (at least RRS 2.0) that provide this sort of functionality
I'd be very surprised if there are many aggregators that support such a
thing.

Post by Gerrit Kuilder
In my thinking the date was more important that the link of an item,

A date is only important if it has a meaningful value. If you have a date to
go with an entry (such as a file date, or a date from a log), by all means
include it. However if you're just making up a date for the sake of having
one, you're wasting your time.

Post by Gerrit Kuilder
This brings up the following question (with me at least): Is what I am
trying to do suitable for RSS, IE: the feed IS the message.

If you're talking about the second option I mentioned above (namely a fixed
list that's replaced in its entirety every update) then no. I wouldn't think
it's suitable for RSS, at least at the moment. You aren't the only person
that wants to do that sort of thing, but I don't believe there's very much
support for it yet.

Regards
James



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