#428 RSS and Atom

Book notes - RSS and Atom: Understanding and Implementing Content Feeds and Syndication, by Heinz Wittenbrink. First published January 1, 2005.

Notes

I remember using this book as a pretty good reference to figure out ATOM and RSS syntax. Seems long out of circulation, though sources are still available.

Contents

• Introduction
• Chapter 1: What are Newsfeeds?
  • 1.1 Applications
  • 1.2 Feed-Based Services
  • 1.3 RSS Requirements
  • 1.4 Semantics: The RSS Model
  • 1.4.1 Minimal Information
  • 1.4.2 Other Content and Metadata
  • 1.5 Syntax: RSS as an XML Format
  • 1.6 Feed Formats and other XML Formats
  • 1.7 The Versions of RSS and Atom: Their Evolution and the Future
    • 1.7.1 The Beginnings: MCF, Scripting News, and CDF
    • 1.7.2 RSS 0.91
    • 1.7.3 RSS 1.0
    • 1.7.4 RSS 0.92
    • 1.7.5 RSS 0.93
    • 1.7.6 RSS 2.0
    • 1.7.7 From a Syndication to a Publication Format: Atom, the New Alternative
    • 1.7.8 Which Format for Which Purpose?
• Chapter 2: Really Simple Syndication: RSS 2.0 and Its Predecessors
  • 2.1 Overview
    • 2.1.1 RSS 2.0: Lowest Common Denominator of the Feed Formats
    • 2.1.2 Important New Developments: Podcasting and Further Extensions
    • 2.1.3 Design Principles
  • 2.2 The RSS 2.0 Vocabulary
    • 2.2.1 Basic Structure of an RSS 2.0 Document
    • 2.2.2 Basic Information of an RSS 2.0 Document: title, link, and description
    • 2.2.3 Text or HTML as the Content of title and description
  • 2.3 RSS 2.0 Elements for Rich Metadata
    • 2.3.1 Dates: Time Specifications and Updating
    • 2.3.2 Specification of Persons and Authors
    • 2.3.3 Identification and Description of the Content
    • 2.3.4 Technology
    • 2.3.5 Internationalization
    • 2.3.6 Elements for the Support of Publication and Subscription Tools
    • 2.3.7 Characterization of a Feed with an Image: The image Element Support for the Functions of Aggregators: cloud, ttl, textinput, skipHours and hour, skipDay, and day
  • 2.4 Adding Multimedia Data with enclosure
  • 2.5 The Predecessors of RSS 2.0
    • 2.5.1 RSS 0.91
    • 2.5.2 RSS 0.92
    • 2.5.3 RSS 0.93 and 0.94
    • 2.5.4 Differences Between RSS 2.0 and the Earlier Versions
  • 2.6 Extension Modules
    • 2.6.1 The blogChannel Module
    • 2.6.2 The BitTorrent Module
    • 2.6.3 The creativeCommons Module
    • 2.6.4 The Easy News Topics Module
    • 2.6.5 The OpenSearch Module from Amazon
    • 2.6.6 The RSS Media Module from Yahoo!
    • 2.6.7 Microsoft’s Simple List Extensions
    • 2.6.8 The Simple Semantic Resolution Module: RSS 2.0 as RDF
  • 2.7 Aggregation of Feeds and OPML
• Chapter 3: RSS for the Semantic Web: RSS 1.0 and RSS 1.1
  • 3.1 RDF Basics
  • 3.2 The Basic Structure of an RSS 1.0 Document
    • 3.2.1. Namespaces
    • 3.2.2 The Structure of the Document as a Consequence of the RDF Model
  • 3.3 The Core Vocabulary of RSS 1.0
  • 3.3.1 Structure
  • 3.3.2 Descriptive Elements
  • 3.4 Modules for Metadata
  • 3.5 RS$ 1.0 Modules
    • 3.5.1 Dublin Core
    • 3.5.2 Syndication Modules
    • 3.5.3 Content Module
    • 3.5.4 Suggested Modules
  • 3.6 RSS 1.1
    • 3.6.1 Channel as Root Element
• Chapter 4: Atom
  • 4.1 Overview
  • 4.2 The Structure of an Atom Feed
    • 4.2.1 Overview: Atom Elements
    • 4.2.2 The Basic Structure of an Atom Document
    • 4.2.3 Content as a “First-Class Citizen”
    • 4.2.4 The Use of Links in Atom
    • 4.2.5 Other Metadata
  • 4.3 Extensibility
  • 4.4 Publishing with the Atom Publishing Protocol
    • 4.4.1 Design Principles
    • 4.4.2 Entry Documents and Publishing Extensions
    • 4.4.3 Functions of the Atom APIs
    • 4.4.4 Format of Documents in the Communication Between Client and Server
    • 4.4.5 How to Support Specific Functionality of Publishing Systems?
    • 4.4.6 Communication through SOAP
    • 4.4.7 Extensions of the Publishing Protocol
• Appendix A
  • A.1 Reference: XML Namespaces
  • A.2 Outline Processor Markup Language
  • A.3 Overview: RSS 2.0 Elements
  • A.4 Overview: RSS 1.0 Elements
  • A.5 RSS 1.0 Modules
  • A.6 Overview: RSS 1.1 Elements
  • A.7 Overview: Atom Elements
  • A.8 Bibliography

Source Code

Example sources are maintained on https://resources.oreilly.com/examples/9781904811572/ Cloning to an example_source folder:

git clone https://resources.oreilly.com/examples/9781904811572/ example_source

Credits and References

• RSS and Atom: Understanding and Implementing Content Feeds and Syndication
  • amazon
  • goodreads
  • O’Reilly
  • example source