Skip to Content Sun Java Solaris Communities My SDN Account Join SDN

SDN Home > Products & Technologies > Java Technology > J2EE > JSP > Reference > Technical Articles and Tips > JavaServer Pages Technology >

Article

RSS Utilities: A Tutorial

Print-friendly Version

Printable Page

Articles Index

By Rodrigo Oliveira
August 2003

RSS ("Really Simple Syndication") is a web content syndication format. RSS is becoming the standard format for syndicating news content over the web. As part of my recent contract with Sun Microsystems, I was tasked with the development of a JSP Tag Library to be used by anybody with a basic understanding of RSS, JavaServer Pages, and HTML. The taglib is mostly geared towards non-technical editors of web sites that use RSS for aggregating news content. My goal was to develop a JSP tag library that would simplify the use of RSS content (versions 0.91, 0.92 and 2.0) in web pages.

The RSS Utilities Package is the result of that project. It contains a set of custom JSP tags which make up the RSS Utilities Tag library, and a flexible RSS Parser. This document describes how to use the parser and the library provided in the RSS Utilities Package. Click here to download the first release. The zip file contains a jar file, rssutils.jar, containing the classes needed to use the utilities, and a tld file, rssutils.tld, which defines JSP custom tags for extracting information from RSS documents.

Installing the taglib

Although it's easy to use the tag library, installing it requires some knowledge of how your web server works and how to configure it. The first step is to download and unzip the package. Once the zip file has been unzipped, place a copy of rssutils.jar and rsstaglib.tld inside the /WEB-INF/lib directory of your web application. Add the following taglib definition to the /WEB-INF/web.xml file of your web application:

    <taglib>
        <taglib-uri>/WEB-INF/rssutils.tld</taglib-uri>
        <taglib-location>/WEB-INF/rssutils.tld</taglib-location>
    </taglib>

Using the taglib

Once the taglib has been installed in your web application, you can use it in your JSP pages by following these steps. First, add the following line to the top of your JSP page:

    <%@ taglib uri="/WEB-INF/rssutils.tld" prefix="rss" %>

Next, add an RSS feed to your JSP page using the feed tag, as in the following example:


   <rss:feed
url="http://servlet.java.sun.com/syndication/rss_java_highlights-10.xml"
feedId="javaSunCom"/>

The url attribute of the "feed" tag must contain the URL to the RSS document. The feedId attribute of the "feed" tag is arbitrary, and can be set to anything. However, it is recommended that the attribute be something intuitive that identifies the RSS feed. If your application resides behind a firewall, you can use the proxy attributes of the "feed" tag, namely proxyAddress and proxyPort, to set your proxy settings. Check with your network administrator if you don't know your proxy server address proxy port. Here is an example:

    <rss:feed

url="http://servlet.java.sun.com/syndication/rss_java_highlights-10.xml"
      feedId="example1"
      proxyAddress="129.149.246.4"
      proxyPort="8080"/>

Once you have added one or more RSS feeds to your page, you should be able to extract almost any information out of the feeds using the remaining set of tags. Here is an example showing how to extract the title of the channel of the RSS feed we added above:

<rss:channelTitle feedId="javaSunCom"/>

Taglib examples

Example 1 (RSS 0.91):

<rss:feed
url="http://servlet.java.sun.com/syndication/rss_java_highlights-XYZCompany-10.xml"
feedId="example1"/>
<b>Image: </b><rss:channelImage feedId="example1" asLink="true"/><br>
<b>Title: </b><rss:channelTitle feedId="example1"/><br>
<b>Link: </b><rss:channelLink feedId="example1" asLink="true"/><br>
<b>Description: </b><rss:channelDescription feedId="example1"/><br>
<ul>
  <li><rss:itemTitle feedId="example1" index="0"/><br>
      <rss:itemDescription feedId="example1" index="0"/><br><br>
  <li><rss:itemTitle feedId="example1" index="1"/><br>
      <rss:itemDescription feedId="example1" index="1"/><br>
</ul>

Example 2 (RSS 0.92):

<rss:feed
url="http://static.userland.com/gems/backend/gratefulDead.xml" feedId="example2"/>
<b>Image: </b><rss:channelImage feedId="example2"/><br>
<b>Title: </b><rss:channelTitle feedId="example2"/><br>
<b>Link: </b><rss:channelLink feedId="example2" asLink="true"/><br>
<b>Description: </b><rss:channelDescription feedId="example2"/><br>
<ul>
  <rss:forEachItem feedId="example2">
    <li><rss:itemDescription feedId="example2"/><br><br>
  </rss:forEachItem>
</ul>

Example 3 (RSS 2.0):

<rss:feed
url="http://static.userland.com/gems/backend/rssTwoExample2.xml"
feedId="example3"/>
<b>Image: </b><rss:channelImage feedId="example3"/><br>
<b>Title: </b><rss:channelTitle feedId="example3"/><br>
<b>Link: </b><rss:channelLink feedId="example3" asLink="true"/><br>
<b>Description: </b><rss:channelDescription feedId="example3"/><br>
<b>Copyright: </b><rss:channelCopyright feedId="example3"/><br>
<b>Docs: </b><rss:channelDocs feedId="example3"/><br>
<b>Generator: </b><rss:channelGenerator feedId="example3"/><br>
<b>Language: </b><rss:channelLanguage feedId="example3"/><br>
<b>Last Build Date: </b><rss:channelLastBuildDate
feedId="example3"/><br>
<b>Managing Editor: </b><rss:channelManagingEditor
feedId="example3"/><br>
<b>Pub Date: </b><rss:channelPubDate feedId="example3"/><br>
<b>Skip Days: </b><rss:channelSkipDays feedId="example3"/><br>
<b>Skip Hours: </b><rss:channelSkipHours feedId="example3"/><br>
<b>TTL: </b><rss:channelTTL feedId="example3"/><br>
<ul>
  <rss:forEachItem feedId="example3" startIndex="2" endIndex="4">
    <li><rss:itemDescription feedId="example3"/><br><br>
  </rss:forEachItem>
</ul>

How to use the RssParser

The parser was, in a way, a by-product of the project. Although the parser was developed with the tag library in mind, it is completely self-contained, and it can be used in Java applications. To do so, however, you obviously need to know how to write at least basic Java code. (If you know how to write Hello World in the Java language, you are probably all set.)

First download and unzip the package. Once you have added rssutils.jar to your classpath, create an instance of the RssParser interface using the RssParserFactory. Here is an example:

RssParser parser = RssParserFactory.createDefault();
            Rss rss = parser.parse(new
URL("http://mydomain.com/document.rss"));

The RSS object generated by the parser is a Java object representation of the RSS document found at the provided URL. Use the methods provided by the RSS object to get a handle to other RSS objects, such as Channels and Items. The RssParser can also parse File objects and InputStream objects.

Conclusion

RSS provides a simple way to add and maintain news -- as well as other content -- on your web site, from all over the web. Even though RSS is a simple XML format, parsing and extracting data out of XML documents hosted elsewhere on the web can be a bit tricky-- or at least tedious -- if you have to do it over and over again. The RSS Utilities Package leverages Custom Tag and XML Parsing technologies to make the "Real Simple Syndication" format live up to its name.