How to Use a PHP RSS Feed Parser That Avoids Blocking From Content Delivery Network Services That Block Robots Using the Package RSS Fetch XML: Fetch and cache an RSS or an Atom feed from a URL

Please check this example script to learn how to retrieve, parse and cache RSS feeds of site contents.

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<h3 align="center">rssFetchXml</h3>

<p align="center">

rssFetchXml is an RSS and Atom reader that uses PHP, Javascript and HTML to display XML feeds
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<a href="https://github.com/github_username/repo_name">View Demo</a>

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<li>
  <a href="#about-the-project">About The Project</a>
  <ul>
    <li><a href="#built-with">Built With</a></li>
  </ul>
</li>
<li>
  <a href="#getting-started">Getting Started</a>
  <ul>
    <li><a href="#prerequisites">Prerequisites</a></li>
    <li><a href="#installation">Installation</a></li>
  </ul>
</li>
<li><a href="#usage">Usage</a></li>
<li><a href="#license">License</a></li>
<li><a href="#contact">Contact</a></li>

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About The Project

<b>rssFetchXml Features:</b>

• Avoids using commercial RSS APIs that may require a subscription and fees
• Compact code that simplifies adding an RSS feed to a webpage utilizing PHP's simplexml, cURL and Javascript.
• Does not require allow_url_fopen enabled.
• Using simplexml with cURL sends "friendly" RSS requests that CDNs such as Cloudflare may treat as bots with other methods.
• Auto saves cached XML files.
• Cache dir, cache expiration time, max number of feed links and custom error message set in config file.

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Built With

• Javascript
• PHP (v8.2)

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Getting Started

Prerequisites

• PHP (v7.2+)
• cURL extension enabled
• libxml extension enabled

Installation

1. Upload rssFetchXml.php, rss_config.php and rss_fetch.js to a directory on your server. rssFetchXml.php and rss_config.php must be in the same directory.

2. Open `rss_config.php` and edit the following variables
   return [
    "cache_dir" => "path/to/cache/", //Path to cache dir
    "cache_expire" => 3600, //Cache expire in secs - ie: 3600 = 1 hr
    "rss_error" => "RSS fetch failed - RSS Url or feed may be unavailable", //Custom error message on feed failure
    "rss_max" => 12 //Max number of links displayed
   ];
   

3. Open `rss_fetch.js` and edit the following variable
   let rssUrl = "https://somesite.com/rss/rssFetchXml.php";
   

4. Add `rss_fetch.js` script link to your HTML template right before the closing `</body>` tag
   <script src="https://somesite.com/rss/rss_fetch.js"></script>
   

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Usage

1. Add an empty HTML div where you want to display the RSS feed. Set its class as `rss-feed` and the data attribute `data-rss` value as the RSS feed URL.
   <div class="rss-feed" data-rss="https://somesite.com/rss/feeds/feed.xml"></div>
   

2. This will return a HTML formatted block with the following structure:
   <div class="rss-feed" data-rss="https://somesite.com/rss/feeds/feed.xml">
    <div class="rss-header"><a href="https://somesite.com/" target="_blank">Channel Title</a></div>
    <div class="rss-wrapper">
      <div class="rss-link"><a href="https://somesite.com/item.html" target="_blank">Item 1 Title</a></div>
      <div class="rss-link"><a href="https://somesite.com/item2.html" target="_blank">Item 2 Title</a></div>
      <div class="rss-link"><a href="https://somesite.com/item3.html" target="_blank">Item 3 Title</a></div>
    </div>
   </div> 
   

3. Add the following CSS properties to your CSS file to format your feed
   .rss-feed {
    padding: .5rem;
    background-color: #fff;
    border: .063rem solid #aaa;
   }
   .rss-header {
    padding: .5rem;
   }
   .rss-header a {
    font-weight: bold;
    padding: .5rem;
    color: #000;
    text-decoration: none;
   }
   .rss-wrapper {
    height: 10rem;
    overflow-x: hidden;
    overflow-y: scroll;
    padding: .5rem;
   }
   .rss-link a {
    text-decoration: none;
   }
   

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Troubleshooting

1. If your are displaying the custom error message, check that the RSS feed URL is correct. Some site's CDNs may use strict security and are treating you request as a bot and returning forbidden codes. You will need to create a proxy feed from a site such as Google's <a href="https://feedburner.google.com/">Feedburner</a>.
2. If no RSS content or error messages are being displayed, check the cache dir path you set in `rss_config` is valid and exists. Also check the URL set in `rss_fetch.js` is correct as well the script URL.

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License

Distributed under the MIT license. See LICENSE.txt for more information.

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Contact

Mike Jordan: mtjo62@gmail.com

Project Link: https://github.com/mtjo62/rssFetchXml

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