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The description can hold any content you wish, including XHTML.

</description>

<pubDate>Tue, 12 Sep 2006 07:56:23 EDT</pubDate>

</item>

<item>

<title>Another Catchy Title</title>

<link>http://www.example.org/another-catchy-title.html</link>

<description>

The description can hold any content you wish, including XHTML.

</description>

<pubDate>Tue, 12 Sep 2006 07:56:23 EDT</pubDate>

</item>

</channel>

</rss>

The feed may contain any number of

<item>

elements, each item holding different news or blog entries —

or whatever content you want to store.

You can either create feeds for others to access, or you can syndicate feeds that others create. The follow-

ing section discusses how to create feeds, and the next demonstrates the use of a third-party library called

SimplePie to syndicate feeds.

Creating RSS Feeds

To make generating feeds for your content easier, create a class called the “

RSS Factory

.” For the first

time, you’ll use object-oriented programming (OOP).

Previous exercises avoided using PHP’s object-oriented programming support. It’s used for this one

because it actually makes things easier. Some explanations on its usage follow the exercise.

The class is aptly named

RSSFactory

, and it will provide all necessary functionality for generating RSS

feeds. You’ll implement this class and then use it to create a feed for “new SEO Egghead products” in the

exercise that follows.

Creating the RSS Factory

1.

Create a new file named

rss_factory.inc.php

in your

seophp/include

folder. You’ll keep

your RSS Factory class in this file. Type this code in

rss_factory.inc.php

:

<?php

class RSSFactory

{

var $_title;

var $_link;

var $_description;

var $_language;

var $_items;

// escape string characters for inclusion in XML structure

154

Chapter 7: Web Feeds and Social Bookmarking

c07.qxd:c07 10:42 154

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