Megan — Fri, 16 Mar 2007 14:17:03 +0000

benf;216540 wrote: Yes i know what an RSS feed looks like but how does the information change when you display it on a web page? This must be database driven.

I'm not sure what you're getting at here. The web page (or RSS reader) just goes to the server and grabs the xml file, displaying the most current results. Or are you asking how the information gets into the RSS file? It would depend on the original source of the data. If it's in a database (such as in a typical CMS), then yes, it would be pulled from a database. But you could also write a feed by hand if you wanted to.

benf;216540 wrote: In summary i keep hearing and reading "XML is designed to describe data better" but with no actual example or explaination as to why that is more effective? How can this better described data be used?

Well, with RSS it's obvious, right? Lots of different applications can take that data, read it, and do stuff with it (in this case, just displaying it to people). They don't need special access to a database or anything. It's just a simple link to an xml file. The data can be shared between different applications on different servers. The sitemap protocol is another example (now that the 3 major SE's have decided to cooperate). You'll have a sitemap.xml file on your website and Google, Yahoo, and MSN will all be able to read it and do stuff with it.

I don't know what you're referring to when you say that it's "better" or "more effective" >> compared to what??

The database thing you mentioned in your last part - that could be how RSS feeds are created most of the time but I really don't know about that.

benf — Fri, 16 Mar 2007 13:59:39 +0000

Yes i understand that it can describe data better...that is obvious just from looking at it. However, how are these personlized tags more effective. This to me means more work creating some kind of script that can interporate the tags that is sent with the XML file.

Yes i know what an RSS feed looks like but how does the information change when you display it on a web page? This must be database driven.

In summary i keep hearing and reading "XML is designed to describe data better" but with no actual example or explaination as to why that is more effective? How can this better described data be used?

The database thing, i heard the other day and read that SQL server can out put results as XML. I thought this must be an incredible opportunity where these can then be created into RSS feeds. Straight from the database!

Megan — Thu, 15 Mar 2007 13:14:16 +0000

XML is different from HTML in that it describes the data more specifically. Then programs can do stuff with it, such as serving RSS feeds. This is what an RSS feed looks like:

<rss version="2.0">
<channel>

<title>This is the title for your feed</title>
<description> this is the description for your feed</description>
<link>http://www.websiteaddress.com</link>

<item>
<title>Title of the Item</title>
<description>This is the description. For a typical RSS feed you would have a summary of the post or a full text here (I think - not sure if there's different tags for full text feeds)</description>
<link>http://www.linktothepost.com</link>
<guid>http://www.linktothepost.com (I forget what the guid is for actually...)</guid>
</item>

<item>
<title>Title of the Item</title>
<description>This is the description. For a typical RSS feed you would have a summary of the post or a full text here (I think - not sure if there's different tags for full text feeds)</description>
<link>http://www.linktothepost.com</link>
<guid>http://www.linktothepost.com (I forget what the guid is for actually...)</guid>
</item>


<item>
<title>Title of the Item</title>
<description>This is the description. For a typical RSS feed you would have a summary of the post or a full text here (I think - not sure if there's different tags for full text feeds)</description>
<link>http://www.linktothepost.com</link>
<guid>http://www.linktothepost.com (I forget what the guid is for actually...)</guid>
</item>


</channel>
</rss>

With XML you could have all kinds of data described like that. Then other applications can read it an manipulate it.

I'm not quite sure what you are asking about in your last two points. I haven't figured out how to build a feed from a database (yet), but I think what you'd have is a script that would take the data from the database and build a feed out of it (adding in the relevant tags to describe the information).

Sorry if this isn't what you were asking about