PHP AJAX RSS Reader

# PHP Example - AJAX RSS Reader

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An RSS Reader is used to read RSS Feeds.

## AJAX RSS Reader

The following example will demonstrate an RSS reader, where the RSS-feed is loaded into a webpage without reloading:

RSS-feed will be listed here...

## Example Explained - The HTML Page

When a user selects an RSS-feed in the dropdown list above, a function called "showRSS()" is executed. The function is triggered by the "onchange" event:

<html>
<head>
<script>
function showRSS(str) {
if (str.length==0) {
document.getElementById("rssOutput").innerHTML="";
return;
}
if (window.XMLHttpRequest) {
// code for IE7+, Firefox, Chrome, Opera, Safari
xmlhttp=new XMLHttpRequest();
} else { // code for IE6, IE5
xmlhttp=new ActiveXObject("Microsoft.XMLHTTP");
}
xmlhttp.onreadystatechange=function() {
if (xmlhttp.readyState==4 && xmlhttp.status==200) {
document.getElementById("rssOutput").innerHTML=xmlhttp.responseText;
}
}
xmlhttp.open("GET","getrss.php?q="+str,true);
xmlhttp.send();
}
</script>
</head>
<body>
<form>
<select onchange="showRSS(this.value)">
<option value="">Select an RSS-feed:</option>
<option value="Google">Google News</option>
<option value="NBC">NBC News</option>
</select>
</form>
<br>
<div id="rssOutput">RSS-feed will be listed here...</div>
</body>
</html>

The showRSS() function does the following:

- Check if an RSS-feed is selected
- Create an XMLHttpRequest object
- Create the function to be executed when the server response is ready
- Send the request off to a file on the server
- Notice that a parameter (q) is added to the URL (with the content of the dropdown list)

## The PHP File

The page on the server called by the JavaScript above is a PHP file called "getrss.php":

<?php
//get the q parameter from URL
$q=$_GET["q"];
//find out which feed was selected
if($q=="Google") {
$xml=("http://news.google.com/news?ned=us&topic=h&output=rss");
} elseif($q=="NBC") {
$xml=("http://rss.msnbc.msn.com/id/3032091/device/rss/rss.xml");
}
$xmlDoc = new DOMDocument();
$xmlDoc->load($xml);
//get elements from "<channel>"
$channel=$xmlDoc->getElementsByTagName('channel')->item(0);
$channel_title = $channel->getElementsByTagName('title')
->item(0)->childNodes->item(0)->nodeValue;
$channel_link = $channel->getElementsByTagName('link')
->item(0)->childNodes->item(0)->nodeValue;
$channel_desc = $channel->getElementsByTagName('description')
->item(0)->childNodes->item(0)->nodeValue;
//output elements from "<channel>"
echo("<p><a href='" . $channel_link
. "'>" . $channel_title . "</a>");
echo("<br>");
echo($channel_desc . "</p>");
//get and output "<item>" elements
$x=$xmlDoc->getElementsByTagName('item');
for ($i=0; $i<=2; $i++) {
$item_title=$x->item($i)->getElementsByTagName('title')
->item(0)->childNodes->item(0)->nodeValue;
$item_link=$x->item($i)->getElementsByTagName('link')
->item(0)->childNodes->item(0)->nodeValue;
$item_desc=$x->item($i)->getElementsByTagName('description')
->item(0)->childNodes->item(0)->nodeValue;
echo ("<p><a href='" . $item_link
. "'>" . $item_title . "</a>");
echo ("<br>");
echo ($item_desc . "</p>");
}
?>

When a request for an RSS feed is sent from the JavaScript, the following happens:

- Check which feed was selected
- Create a new XML DOM object
- Load the RSS document in the xml variable
- Extract and output elements from the channel element
- Extract and output elements from the item elements

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