PHP - AJAX RSS Feed Example

Really Simple Syndication (RSS)

RSS, which stands for Really Simple Syndication, is used to publish often updated information from website like audio, video, images, etc. We can integrate RSS feeds to a website by using AJAX and PHP. This code demonstrates how to show RSS feeds in our site.

Index.html

The index page should be as follows −

<html>
<head>
   <script>
      function showRSS(str) {
         if (str.length == 0) { 
            document.getElementById("output").innerHTML = "";
            return;
         }

         if (window.XMLHttpRequest) {
            xmlhttp = new XMLHttpRequest();
         } else {
            xmlhttp = new ActiveXObject("Microsoft.XMLHTTP");
         }
         xmlhttp.onreadystatechange = function() {
            if (xmlhttp.readyState == 4 && xmlhttp.status == 200) {
               document.getElementById("output").innerHTML = xmlhttp.responseText;
            }
         }

         xmlhttp.open("GET","rss.php?q="+str,true);
         xmlhttp.send();
      }
   </script>
</head>
<body>
   <p>Please Select an option to get RSS:</p>
   <form>
      <select onchange = "showRSS(this.value)">
         <option value = "">Select an RSS-feed:</option>
         <option value = "cnn">CNN</option>
         <option value = "bbc">BBC News</option>
         <option value = "pc">PC World</option>
      </select>
   </form>
   <br>
   <div id = "output">RSS-feeds</div>
</body>
</html>

rss.php

"rss.php" has contained syntax about how to get access to RSS Feeds RSS Feeds and return RSS Feeds to the webpages.

<?php
   $q = $_GET["q"];

   if($q == "cnn") {
      $xml = ("http://rss.cnn.com/rss/cnn_topstories.rss");
   } elseif($q == "bbc") {
      $xml = ("http://newsrss.bbc.co.uk/rss/newsonline_world_edition/americas/rss.xml");
   } elseif($q = "pcw"){
      $xml = ("http://www.pcworld.com/index.rss");
   }

   $xmlDoc = new DOMDocument();
   $xmlDoc->load($xml);

   $channel = $xmlDoc->getElementsByTagName('channel')->item(0);

   $channel_title = $channel->getElementsByTagName('title')
   ->item(0)->childNodes->item(0)->nodeValue;

   $channel_link = $channel->getElementsByTagName('link')
   ->item(0)->childNodes->item(0)->nodeValue;

   $channel_desc = $channel->getElementsByTagName('description')
   ->item(0)->childNodes->item(0)->nodeValue;

   echo("<p><a href = '" . $channel_link . "'>" . 
      $channel_title . "</a>");
   echo("<br>");
   echo($channel_desc . "</p>");

   $x = $xmlDoc->getElementsByTagName('item');

   for ($i = 0; $i<=2; $i++) {
      $item_title = $x->item($i)->getElementsByTagName('title')
      ->item(0)->childNodes->item(0)->nodeValue;

      $item_link = $x->item($i)->getElementsByTagName('link')
      ->item(0)->childNodes->item(0)->nodeValue;

      $item_desc = $x->item($i)->getElementsByTagName('description')
      ->item(0)->childNodes->item(0)->nodeValue;

      echo ("<p><a href = '" . $item_link . "'>" . $item_title . "</a>");
      echo ("<br>");
      echo ($item_desc . "</p>");
   }
?>

It will produce the following output −

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