Simple PHP RSS Reader With AJAX
The following example will demonstrate an RSS reader, where the RSS-feed is loaded into a webpage without reloading. When downloading the source code, simply drop the files into a PHP enabled web server directory (I use Wamp Server 2 - its awesome, and very easy to install).
Example Explained - The HTML Page
When a user selects an RSS-feed in the dropdown list above, a function called "showResult()" is executed. The function is triggered by the "onchange" event:
The Code:
<html>
<head>
<script>
function showRSS(str)
{
if (str.length==0)
{
document.getElementById( "rssOutput" ).innerHTML = "";
return;
}
if (window.XMLHttpRequest)
{// code for IE7+, Firefox, Chrome, Opera, Safari
xmlhttp=new XMLHttpRequest();
}
else
{// code for IE6, IE5
xmlhttp=new ActiveXObject( "Microsoft.XMLHTTP" );
}
xmlhttp.onreadystatechange = function()
{
if ( xmlhttp.readyState == 4 && xmlhttp.status == 200 )
{
document.getElementById( "rssOutput" ).innerHTML = xmlhttp.responseText;
}
}
xmlhttp.open( "GET","getrss.php?q = "+str,true );
xmlhttp.send();
}
</script>
</head>
<body>
<form>
<select onchange="showRSS(this.value)">
<option value="">Select an RSS-feed:</option>
<option value="Google">Google News</option>
<option value="MSNBC">MSNBC News</option>
</select>
</form>
<br>
<div id="rssOutput">RSS-feed will be listed here...</div>
</body>
</html>
The showResult() function does the following:
1) Check if an RSS-feed is selected
2) Create an XMLHttpRequest object
3) Create the function to be executed when the server response is ready
4) Send the request off to a file on the server
5) Notice that a parameter (q) is added to the URL (with the content of the dropdown list)
The PHP File
The page on the server called by the JavaScript above is a PHP file called "getrss.php":
<?php
//get the q parameter from URL
$q=$_GET["q"];
//find out which feed was selected
if($q=="Google")
{
$xml=("http://news.google.com/news? ned=us&topic=h&output=rss");
}
elseif($q=="MSNBC")
{
$xml=("http://rss.msnbc.msn.com/ id/3032091/device/rss/rss.xml");
}
$xmlDoc = new DOMDocument();
$xmlDoc->load($xml);
//get elements from "<channel>"
$channel=$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;
//output elements from "<channel>"
echo("<p><a href='" . $channel_link . "'>" . $channel_title . "</a>");
echo("<br>");
echo($channel_desc . "</p>");
//get and output "<item>" elements
$x=$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>");
}
?>
When a request for an RSS feed is sent from the JavaScript, the following happens:
1) Check which feed was selected
2) Create a new XML DOM object
3) Load the RSS document in the xml variable
4) Extract and output elements from the channel element
5) Extract and output elements from the item elements
Published on 19 March 2013 in PHP Scripts