RSS 2.0 specifications

What is RSS?
RSS is a Web content sydication format ).
Its name is the abbreviation of Really Simple Syndication.
RSS is a type of XML. All RSS documents comply with the XML 1.0 specification, which is published on the W3C website.

The beginning of an RSS document is an <RSS> node and a specified attribute version, which specifies which version of the document will be represented by RSS. If this document uses this specification, its version attribute must be 2.0.

The lower level of the <RSS> node is an independent <channel> node that contains information and content about the channel.

About this document
This document belongs to RSS version 2.0.1.

Required channel nodes
The following is a list of channel nodes that must be included. Each node has a simple description, an example, the location where it should appear, and a hyperlink with a more detailed description.

Element	Description	Example
Title	Channel name. It tells others how to access your service. If you have an HTML website with the same content as your RSS file, your title element value should be the same as the title of your website.	Goupstate.com news headings
Link	Response URL of the website of this channel	Http://www.goupstate.com/
Description	Description of this channel	The latest news from goupstate.com, A Spartanburg Herald-joural web site

 

Optional channel Elements
The following is a list of optional channel elements.
 

Node	Description	Example
Language	Language used. This allows the aggregators to group all sites in Italian.	En-US
Copyright	Copyright Notice	Copyright 2002, Spartanburg Herald-Journal
Managingeditor	Email of the content owner	Geo@herald.com (George matesky)
Webmaster	Technical staff email	Betty@herald.com (Betty Guernsey)
Pubdate	Content release time	Sat, 07 Sep 2002 00:00:01 GMT
Lastbuilddate	Last Update Time	Sat, 07 Sep 2002 09:42:31 GMT
Category	Specifies the category to which the channel belongs. Follow the same rule as the item-level category element.	<Category> newspapers </Category>
Generator	GenerateProgramName	Mightyinhouse content system v2.3
Docs	URL pointing to an RSS document?	Http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss
Cloud	Allows all processes to register a cloud for Channel update notifications and implement a lightweight publish/subscribe protocol for RSS seeds.	<Cloud domain = "rpc.sys.com" Port = "80" Path = "/rpc2" registerprocedure = "pingme" protocol = "Soap"/>
TTL	TTL is short for time to live. It indicates the effective retention time of the cache.	<TTL> 60 </TTL>
Image	Image address displayed with the Channel
Rating	The Statistical Image address of this channel
Textinput	Specify a textbox to display with this channel
Skiphours	Tell users which time periods can be ignored
Skipdays	Indicates which days can be ignored

<Channel> subnode <image>
<Image> is an optional <channel> subnode that contains three required child elements and three optional child elements.
<URL> is the URL of a GIF, JPEG, or PNG image file. The image represents the entire channel.
<Title> used to describe the image above, equivalent to the alt attribute of in HTML
<Link> is the URL of the site to be connected. When a channel is displayed, the image connection points to the site.
<Title> and <link> must have the same value as <title> and <link> of the channel.
Optional nodes include <width> and <Description> is the text in the title attribute of link. It will be displayed when a webpage is called.

The maximum image width is 144, and the default value is 88.
The maximum image height is 400. The default value is 31.

<Channel> subnode <cloud>
<Cloud> is an optional <channel> subnode.
It specifies a web service that supports the rsscloud interface, which can be implemented with a HTTP-POST, XML-RPC, or soap1.1.
It aims to allow the process channel registered as cloud to be updated to implement a lightweight publish and subscribe protocol.

< Cloud Domain = "Rpc.sys.com" Port = "80" Path = "/Rpc2" Registerprocedure = "Mycloud. rsspleasenotify" Protocol = "XML-RPC"   />

In this example, in order to request channel notifications, you need to send a XML-RPC message to port 80 of rpc.sys.com in the path of/rpc2. The call process is mycloud. rsspleasenoworkflow.

<Channel> subnode <TTL>
<TTL> is an optional <channel> subnode.
TTL is short for time to live. It indicates the time when the channel should be cached before being refreshed. This allows the RSS source to be managed by a network that supports file sharing, such as Gnutella.
Example: <TTL> 60 </TTL>

<Channel> subnode <textinput>
<Textinput> is an optional sub-node of <channel>, and <textinput> contains four sub-nodes.
<Title> -- tag of the submit button
<Description> -- Description of the text input area
<Name> -- Name of the text input area
<Link> -- process the URL of the CGI script for text input.
The purpose of using <textinput> is somewhat mysterious (?). You can use it to provide a search engine input box or provide readers with feedback. Many aggregators ignore this node.

<Item> node
A channel can contain many item nodes. A project can represent a story, for example, a story in a newspaper or magazine. If so, the project description is a summary of the story, the Project LINK points to the location where the entire story is stored. All nodes of the project are optional, but at least one title and description must be included ).

Node	Description	Example
Title	Item title	Venice Film Festival tries to quit sinking
Link	Item URL	Http://www.nytimes.com/2002/09/07/movies/07FEST.html
Description	Item Summary	Some of the most heated chatter at the Venice Film Festival this week was about the way that the arrival of the stars at the Palazzo del cinema was being staged.
Author	Author's email address	Oprah@oxygen.net
Category	Items can be included in one or more categories.	Simpsons characters
Comments	Item-related comment address	Http://www.myblog.org/cgi-local/mt/mt-comments.cgi? Entry_id = 290
Enclosure	Attached media object
Guid	Uniquely identifies the string of an item.	Http://inessential.com/2002/09/01.php#a2
Pubdate	Item release time	Sun, 19 May 2002 15:21:36 GMT
Source	RSS Feed Source	Quotes of the day

<Item> subnode <source>
<Source> is an optional node of <item>.
Its value is the name of the RSS channel from which the item comes, derived from the title of the item. It has an attribute URL that must be included, which is linked to the XML serialization source.<SourceURL= "Http://static.userland.com/tomalak/links2.xml">Tomalak's Realm</Source>

The role of this node is to enhance the prestige of the connection and further promote the source of news projects. It can be used in the POST command of the aggregator. <Source> is automatically generated when an item is accessed from the aggregator through webblog.

<Item> subnode <enclosure>
<Enclosure> is an optional node of <item>.
It has three necessary attributes. The URL attribute indicates the location of enclosure, Length indicates its byte size, and type indicates its standard MIME type.
The URL must be an http url.

< Enclosure URL = "Http://www.scripting.com/mp3s/weatherReportSuite.mp3" Length = "12216320" Type = "Audio/MPEG"   />

<Item> subnode <Category>
<Category> is an optional node of <item>.
It has an optional attribute or field, which is a string used to define the classification.
The value of this node is a string separated by a forward slash. It is used to identify a hierarchical location in the specified classification method ). The processor can establish sessions for classification recognition. (Processors may establish conventions for the interpretation of categories) There are two examples:

< Category > Grateful Dead </ Category >
< Category Domain = "Http://www.fool.com/cusips" > MSFT </ Category >

You can include many category nodes for different domains according to your needs, and you can have a preference item for different parts of the same domain.

<Item> subnode <pubdate>
<Pubdate> is an optional node of <item>.
The value is the date on which the item is released. If it is a date that has not arrived, you can choose not to display the item before the date arrives.

< Pubdate > Sun, 19 May 2002 15:21:36 GMT </ Pubdate >

 

<Item> subnode <guid>
<Guid> is an optional node of <item>.
GUID is the abbreviation of globally unique identifier. It is a string that uniquely identifies an item. After an item is published, the aggregator can use this string to determine whether the item is new.
<Guid> http://some.server.com/weblogItem3207 </GUID>
Guids do not have specific syntax rules. The aggregators must treat them as strings. Generating a unique string guid depends on the source of the seed.
If the guid node has the ispermalink attribute and the value is true, the reader considers it as the permalink of the item. Permalink is a URL link that can be opened in a web browser. It points to all items described by the <item> node.
<Guid ispermalink = "true"> http://inessential.com/2002/09/01.php#a2 </GUID>

Ispermalink is an optional attribute. The default value is true. If the value is false, the guid will not be considered a URL or a URL pointing to any object.

<Item> subnode <comment>
 <Comment> is an optional node of <item>.
If it appears, it points to the URL of the item comment
<Comments> http://rateyourmusic.com/yaccs/commentsn/blogId=705245&amp;itemId=271 </comments>

<Item> subnode <author>
 <Author> is an optional node of <item>.
It is the email of the author of item. For newspapers and magazines spread through RSS, the author may write what this item describes.Article. For clustered webblogs, the author may not be responsible for editing or webmaster. It is meaningful to ignore <author> nodes for personal webblogs.
<Author> lawyer@boyer.net (lawyer Boyer) </author>