Issue with multiple feeds on the same page

[I, Brian]

I'm trying to set up a "News Extra" page in addition to my news blog - to do so I'm bringing together a number of media rss/xml feeds, each in their own cell.

However, some of it just plain isn't working, with what should be a display from one feed simply repeating on other feeds, and also not the full file being displayed.

Here's the page:
http://www.platinax.co.uk/news/extra/

The Security focus cell sometimes shows 1 or 2 stories, or just copies the Reuters - once it actually showed 20 when I mixed the feeds around.

There's also a problem with the Sitepoint and O-Reilly feeds, too.

I think I must be missing something important in the construction of these feeds.

So far I'm simply using the following code:

  <?php
  $xmlfile = fopen("http://news.bbc.co.uk/rss/newsonline_uk_edition/business/rss091.xml", "r");
  if(!$xmlfile)die("cannot open the xml file");
  $readfile = fread($xmlfile ,40000);
  $searchfile = eregi("<item>(.*)</item>", $readfile ,$arrayreg);
  $filechunks = explode("<item>", $arrayreg[0]);
  $count = count($filechunks);
  echo "<table class='featuretable2'>";
  for($i=1 ; $i<=$count-1 ;$i++)
  {
  ereg("<title>(.*)</title>",$filechunks[$i], $title);
  ereg("<link>(.*)</link>",$filechunks[$i], $links);
  echo "<tr><td>";
  echo "<a href ='$links[1]'\>$title[1]</a>";
  echo "</td></tr>";
  }
  echo "</table>";
  ?>

Are there any known problems with bringing multiple feeds together?

I'm really stuck on figuring out why not all feeds are showing, and why almost none are showing their actual full feed of 20 items.

Any pointers most appreciated.

[imaginemn]

The only thing I can think of if you are using the same code for multiple feeds make sure the variables are either defined differently (unique) for each feed or make sure you clear it after using the data. It may be displaying the last defined data instead of updating the content if the feed is blank or cannot connect.

imaginemn

[I, Brian]

Thanks for the comments - much appreciated, and they make sense - I'm using the exact same php code for each feed - all values the same. Spot who isn't used to dealing with programming.

I tried changing the variables, simply by adding a number to the end of each one, but that simply killed the feeds.

or make sure you clear it after using the data

This looks like it could be the easiest method - do you have any suggestions of how I may do that?

[imaginemn]

I would create a function like this.

<?php
function get_feed($source) {
	$xmlfile = fopen($source, "r");

	if(!$xmlfile)die("cannot open the xml file");
	$readfile = fread($xmlfile ,40000);
	$searchfile = eregi("<item>(.*)</item>", $readfile ,$arrayreg);
	$filechunks = explode("<item>", $arrayreg[0]);
	$count = count($filechunks);

	echo "<table class='featuretable2'>";
	for($i=1 ; $i<=$count-1 ;$i++) {
		ereg("<title>(.*)</title>",$filechunks[$i], $title);
		ereg("<link>(.*)</link>",$filechunks[$i], $links);
		echo "<tr><td>";
		echo "<a href ='$links[1]'\>$title[1]</a>";
		echo "</td></tr>";
	}
		echo "</table>";

	$xmlfile = "";
	$readfile = "";
	$searchfile = "";
	$filechunks = "";
	$count = "";
	$source = "";
	$i = "";
	$links = "";
	$title = "";
}
?>

And call each feed like this.

<?php get_feed("http://news.bbc.co.uk/rss/newsonline_uk_edition/business/rss091.xml"); ?>

imaginemn

[insitedev]

You need to make sure that you close the file after you have read from it.

Put the following on the end of each of your feeds (right after you close out the table).

fclose($xmlfile);

That way, if it does not open the xml file, it will display the error (right now, it will never display the error so long as you can open the first feed).

Another alternative is to use file_get_contents instead of fopen and fread. This will read the entire file into a string variable. An example:

$xmlfile = file_get_contents("http://news.bbc.co.uk/rss/newsonline_uk_edition/business/rss091.xml");

That will read the xml feed into the $xmlfile variable, from there, you can proceed with extracting the different parts. I would actually suggest using preg_match_all instead of eregi just because of speed differences and preg_match_all will separate all of the matches into their own arrays. Here's an example that uses file_get_contents and preg_match_all:

<?php

$xmlfile = file_get_contents ("http://news.bbc.co.uk/rss/newsonline_uk_edition/business/rss091.xml");

if (empty($xmlfile))
            die("failed to connect to xml feed");

preg_match_all("|<item>(.*)</item>|sU", $xmlfile, $items);

$itemlist = array();

foreach ($items[1] as $key => $item)
{
	preg_match("|<title>(.*)</title>|s", $item, $title);
	preg_match("|<link>(.*)</link>|s", $item, $link);

	$itemlist[$key]['title'] = $title[1];
	$itemlist[$key]['link'] = $link[1];

}

// Display all article titles, linking them to the actual story

foreach ($itemlist as $item)
{
	echo '<a href="' . $item['link'] . '">' . $item['title'] . '</a><br>';
}

echo '<hr>';		// Just here for separation of the two methods for displaying

// Alternative - set how many articles you want to display

for ($i = 0; $i < 5; $i++)		// Change '5' to the number of articles you would like to show
{
	echo '<a href="' . $itemlist[$i]['link'] . '">' . $itemlist[$i]['title'] . '</a><br>';
}

$xmlfile = "";            // empty out the xmlfeed variable so that you can test the next one.

?>

I'm sure there is probably some redundancy in there, but... hopefully it will work out...

[I, Brian]

Many thanks for the help - the feeds are looking much improved.

For some reason a couple of them aren't worknig at all - but that seems to be an issue I'll take up with the individual vendors.

Thanks again - much appreciated. I've given Imagine Creative a free listing in the Platinax Directory - insitedev, if you would like to suggest a site, feel free.

[insitedev]

I would suggest Insite's website, but we are still in the process of creating it. Perhaps later?

[I, Brian]

No problem - just PM me when you're ready.

[imaginemn]

I, Brian thanks for the link even though it's not necessary. I appreciate it. Did you ever figure out what was going on with the feeds that were not working?

imaginemn

[Johan007]

Originally Posted by I, Brian

Are there any known problems with bringing multiple feeds together?

Multiple feeds hit the server very hard and page load slowly (though yours seems to run fast). You could implement caching the information ever 2 hours?

Good job and much better looking than what I have done.