Generate RSS Feeds in PHP

This PHP snippet shows you how to generate RSS Feeds from MySQL database records on the fly. Easy and straightforward.
Author: SimplytheBest.net Price: Free GPLv2 Type: PHP,MySQL

Assumptions

We use an include to connect to the database. See Connect to MySQL database how to do this.

Code explained

<?php
include "connect.php";

// pass the headers

header("Content-Type: text/xml");
header("Pragma: no-cache");

// RSS version

echo "<?xml version=\"1.0\" encoding=\"ISO-8859-1\"?>
<rss version=\"2.0\">

// channel

<channel>
<title>
This is your title</title>
<description>
This is your description</description>
<link>
This is your link f.e. http://mydomain.com</link>
<language>
en-us</language>
<generator>
Your Website or company name f.e. Bob's RSS Feeds</generator>
";

// let's get the data. This is just an example query. Modify as is needed.

$listing = mysql_query("SELECT *,something.id AS id FROM customers,other_table WHERE other_table.cid=customers.id AND whatever='yes' AND other_table.valid='yes' ");

// Walk through all the records found and grab the data desired

while ($listings = mysql_fetch_assoc($listing)) {
$title = str_replace("&#39;", "'", $
listings['company']);  // here we replace the single quote code back to ' for the browser.
$content = stripslashes(htmlspecialchars($
listings['services']))."\r\n";  // here we convert HTML content back to readable content for the browser. We also add a return because we add another line of content.
$content .= "Address: ".$
listings['address'].", ".$listings['city'].", ".$listings['zip']." ".$listings['state'].", ".$listings['country'];  // here we append another line to the first line of content with ".=" .

If you have just one field of content it would look like:

$content = "Description: ".$listings['description'];  // with a label or simply:
$content = $
listings['description'];  // without a label.

$url = "go.php?id=".$listings['id'] // here we use a go page to redirect to the URL because we want to register the click.

echo "
<item>
<title>
$title</title>
<description>
$content</description>
<link>
$url</link>
<pubDate>
date("l, j F, Y h:i:s A")</pubDate>
<lastBuildDate>
date("l, j F, Y h:i:s A")</lastBuildDate>
</item>
";
//endwhile

echo "
</channel>
</rss>";
?>
 

Code only

<?php
include "connect.php";
header("Content-Type: text/xml");
header("Pragma: no-cache");
echo "<?xml version=\"1.0\" encoding=\"ISO-8859-1\"?>
<rss version=\"2.0\">

<channel>
<title>
This is your title</title>
<description>
This is your description</description>
<link>
This is your link f.e. http://mydomain.com</link>
<language>
en-us</language>
<generator>
Your Website or company name f.e. Bob's RSS Feeds</generator>
";

$listing = mysql_query("SELECT *,something.id AS id FROM customers,other_table WHERE other_table.cid=customers.id AND whatever='yes' AND other_table.valid='yes' ");

while ($listings = mysql_fetch_assoc($listing)) {
$title = str_replace("&#39;", "'", $
listings['company']);
$content = stripslashes(htmlspecialchars($
listings['services']))."\r\n";
$content .= "Address: ".$
listings['address'].", ".$listings['city'].", ".$listings['zip']." ".$listings['state'].", ".$listings['country'];
$url = "
go.php?id=".$listings['id'];

echo "
<item>
<title>
$title</title>
<description>
$content</description>
<link>
$url</link>
<pubDate>
date("l, j F, Y h:i:s A")</pubDate>
<lastBuildDate>
date("l, j F, Y h:i:s A")</lastBuildDate>
</item>
";
}

echo "
</channel>
</rss>";
?>

 

See also: RSS 2.0 Specification


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