CheckRSS

Check RSS feeds for new items

CheckRSS provides some methods to:

• Get all the items in a RSS feed
• Check which of those items is/are new since last check
• Write a log every time a checking for new items is run

It is recommended using CheckRSS with a cron job so you can get new items periodically, although you can run it manually too.

Installation

composer require pqrs/checkrss=dev-master

Alternatively, add the dependency directly to your composer.json file:

"require": {
    "pqrs/checkrss": "dev-master"
}

Then add to your php code:

require_once __DIR__ . '/vendor/autoload.php';   // Autoload files using Composer autoload

use CheckRSS\RSS;

Usage

method getItems($feed_url)

This method gets all the items published in the rss feed and returns an object containing them.

$rss = new RSS;

$items = $rss->getItems("http://feeds.nbcnews.com/feeds/topstories");

An example of the object returned would be:

SimpleXMLElement Object
(
    [guid] => https://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/hurricane-irma/...
    [title] => One-two punch of disease and Irma has left Florida citrus reeling
    [pubDate] => Sat, 10 Feb 2018 15:17:00 GMT
    [link] => https://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/hurricane-irma/...
    [description] => Hurricane Irma served as a knockout punch for many of Florida's...
)

method getNewItems($items)

This method checks which items in a feed (obtained with getItems) are new since the last a check was made.

Returns an object with just the new items.

$rss = new RSS;

// Gets all the items published in the rss feed and stores them in $items
$items = $rss->getItems("http://feeds.nbcnews.com/feeds/topstories");

// Checks which items are new since last check
if ($newitems = $rss->getNewItems($items) ) {

    // Prints new items
    echo "New items found:" . PHP_EOL . PHP_EOL;

    foreach ($newitems as $value) {

        echo $value->title          . PHP_EOL;
        echo $value->description    . PHP_EOL;
        echo $value->guid           . PHP_EOL;
        echo $value->link           . PHP_EOL. PHP_EOL;

    }

} else {

    echo "There'are no new items in RSS feed";

}

method storeLastItemID($item_id)

Internal use. This method writes the last read item id in a file to compare it in future checks.

method isNewItem($item_id)

Internal use. This method compares the last read item id with the last stored one in previous check.

method WriteLog($logline)

A simple method to write a log file everytime a check is made.

Examples

You can find some uses for these functions in tests folder.

Prerequisites

PHP 5.3.0

Contributing

Contributions are of course very welcome!

Credits

Copyright © 2018 Alvaro Piqueras - pqrs

This is a cleanup of a dirty code I wrote some time ago. Also it's my first try with GitHub, Composer and Packagist so if you find some mistakes or have some tips for me, I would be more than glad to hear you.

I hope this code suites your needs.

License

This project is licensed under the MIT License - see the LICENSE file for details.