From: Kouhei Sutou <kou@...>
Date: 2008-04-06T11:32:14+09:00
Subject: Re: Atom & the Standard Library RSS Module

Hi,

In <8311b2d9-35ea-4ff9-a294-8872eb52dbfa@c65g2000hsa.googlegroups.com>
  "Re: Atom & the Standard Library RSS Module" on Sat, 5 Apr 2008 20:45:06 +0900,
  grant <gaustin@gmail.com> wrote:

> On 5 Apr, 01:29, Kouhei Sutou <k...@cozmixng.org> wrote:
> > Please show an example.
> 
> Sorry, I got tangled up in my own wishes. My problem with the library
> was just in my head. I suppose I was just hoping for a more consistent
> representation of a feed than I've had to deal with in the past. I
> know that what is generated by RSS/ATOM parsing libraries is a
> reflection of the feeds themselves.
> 
> Anyway, a few examples of what bugs me, demonstrated in irb:
> 
> require 'rss'
> 
> rss = 'http://www.giftedslacker.com/feed/'
> atom = 'http://oblivionation.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default'
> 
> rssfeed = RSS::Parser.parse(rss)
> atomfeed = RSS::Parser.parse(atom)
>
You can normalize parsed feed by to_rss, to_atom or
to_xml. For example:

  rss10feed = atomfeed.to_rss("1.0")

You may need to set default value:

  rss10feed = atomfeed.to_rss("1.0") do |maker|
    maker.channel.about ||= maker.channel.link
    maker.channel.description ||= "No description"
    maker.items.each do |item|
      item.title ||= "UNKNOWN"
      item.link ||= "UNKNOWN"
    end
  end

> #print the content of the most recent post
> puts rssfeed.items[0].content_encoded
> puts atomfeed.items[0].content.content
> 
> #print the titles of the posts in the feed
> rssfeed.items.each {|item| puts item.title}
> atomfeed.items.each {|item| puts item.title.content}
> 
> #print the author of the most recent post
> rssfeed.items[0].dc_creator
> atomfeed.entries[0].author.name.content

The atom specification says that all atom element may have
xml:base and xml:lang attributes. If
RSS::Atom::Entry::Author#name returns a String, we can't
get such attribute values. This is why
RSS::Atom::Entry::Author#name returns an
RSS::Atom::Entry::Author::Name not a String.

BTW, what about the following API?

  atomfeed.entries[0].author.name # => a String
  atomfeed.entries[0].author.name do |name|
                                    # name: a RSS::Atom::Entry::Author::Name
    name.content # => a String
  end # => the last evaluated value (name.content)


Thanks,
--
kou