Parsing an RSS feed in PHP with DOM

Question

I'm trying to create an array of items from an RSS feed. I'm trying to test if it's working by echoing the title of the first item. I've been unsuccessful so far...I'd really appreciate any advice!

I have two files, an 'index.php' and a 'test.php'.

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<link rel = "stylesheet" type= "text/css" href = "style.css">
</head>

<body>

<h1>TEST SLIDER</h1>

<p>First Title:<br>
<?php

    include 'test.php';
    $NPR_url = 'http://www.npr.org/rss/rss.php?id=1001';
    $NPR = GetFeed($NPR_url);
    echo $NPR[0]['title'];

?>
</p>

</body>
</html>

and 'test.php'

<?php

    function GetFeed($url){
        $feed = new DOMDocument;
        $feed->load($url);
        $feed_array = array();

        foreach($feed->getElementsByTagName('item') as $story){
            $story_array = array (
                                  'title' => $story->getElementsByTagName('title')->item(0)->nodeValue,
                                  'desc' => $story->getElementsByTagName('description')->item(0)->nodeValue,
                                  'link' => $story->getElementsByTagName('link')->item(0)->nodeValue,
                                  'date' => $story->getElementsByTagName('pubDate')->item(0)->nodeValue
            );

            array_push($feed_array, $story_array);
        }

        return $feed_array;
    }


?>

[`DOMElement::getElementsByTagName`](http://www.php.net/manual/en/domelement.getelementsbytagname.php) returns a `NodeList`, not a `Node`. — Passerby, Sep 20 '13 at 03:11
Thanks for the advice. I modified my code to return nodeValues instead of NodeLists, but I still can't get it to work. — Games Dean, Sep 20 '13 at 04:52
What is `var_dump($feed->channel->item)`? You're using DOM, not simpleXML. — Passerby, Sep 20 '13 at 04:55

score 5 · Accepted Answer · answered Sep 20 '13 at 05:05

DOMDocument could not get the 'channel' object after parsing. Here's the GetFeed() function using simpleXML:

test.php

    <?php
    function GetFeed($url){
        $feed = simplexml_load_file($url);
        $feed_array = array();
        foreach($feed->channel->item as $story){
            $story_array = array (
                                  'title' => $story->title,
                                  'desc' => $story->description,
                                  'link' => $story->link,
                                  'date' => $story->date
            );

            array_push($feed_array, $story_array);
        }

        return $feed_array;
    }
    ?>

Hope it helps. Your index.php will remain same.

Ujjwal Ojha · Answer 2 · 2013-11-09T06:51:18.450

Try this ::

 <?php
$rss = new DOMDocument();
$rss->load($url);
$feed = array();
foreach ($rss->getElementsByTagName('item') as $node) {
    $item = array ( 
        'title' => $node->getElementsByTagName('title')->item(0)->nodeValue,
        'desc' => $node->getElementsByTagName('description')->item(0)->nodeValue,
        'link' => $node->getElementsByTagName('link')->item(0)->nodeValue,
        'date' => $node->getElementsByTagName('pubDate')->item(0)->nodeValue,
        );
    array_push($feed, $item);
}
$limit = 5;
for($x=0;$x<$limit;$x++) {
    $title = str_replace(' & ', ' &amp; ', $feed[$x]['title']);
    $link = $feed[$x]['link'];
    $description = $feed[$x]['desc'];
    $date = date('l F d, Y', strtotime($feed[$x]['date']));
    echo '<p><strong><a href="'.$link.'" title="'.$title.'">'.$title.'</a></strong><br />';
    echo '<small><em>Posted on '.$date.'</em></small></p>';
    echo '<p>'.$description.'</p>';
}
?>

Edit : If you are looking for more advanced way, you can use this awesome class by David Grudl.

Parsing an RSS feed in PHP with DOM

2 Answers2

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