Reads or creates an RSS or Atom syndication feed. This tag can read RSS versions 0.90, 0.91, 0.92, 0.93, 0.94, 1.0, and 2.0, and Atom 0.3 or 1.0. It can create RSS 2.0 or Atom 1.0 feeds.

Communications Tags Internet Protocol Tags

ColdFusion 8: Added this tag.

create 
    required 
    <cffeed 
    action = "create" 
    name = "#structure#" 
        One or both of the following:    outputFile = "path" 
    xmlVar = "variable name" 
    optional 
    overwrite = "no|yes"> 
    escapeChars = "true|false"> 
 
OR 
 
    required 
    <cffeed 
    action = "create" 
    properties = "#metadata structure#" 
    query = "#items/entries query name#" 
        One or both of the following:    outputFile = "path" 
    xmlVar = "variable name" 
    optional 
    columnMap = "mapping structure" 
    overwrite = "no|yes"> 
 
read 
    required 
    <cffeed 
    source = "feed source" 
        One or more of the following:    name = "structure" 
    properties = "metadata structure" 
    query = "items/entries query" 
    outputFile = "path" 
    xmlVar = "variable name" 
    optional 
    action = "read" 
    enclosureDir = "path" 
    ignoreEnclosureError = "no|yes" 
    overwrite = "no|yes" 
    overwriteEnclosure = "no|yes" 
    proxyServer = "IP address or server name for proxy host" 
    proxyPassword = "password for the proxy host" 
    proxyPort = "port of the proxy host" 
    proxyUser = "user name for the proxy host" 
    timeout = "request time-out in seconds" 
    userAgent = "HTTP user agent identifier">

Note: You can specify this tag’s attributes in an attributeCollection attribute whose value is a structure. Specify the structure name in the attributeCollection attribute and use the tag’s attribute names as structure keys.

Use the following syntax to specify an in-memory file, which is not written to disk. In-memory files speed processing of transient data.
ram:///filepath The filepath can include directories, for example ram:///petStore/images/poodle.jpg. Create the directories in the path before you specify the file. For more information on using in-memory files, see Optimizing transient files in the Developing ColdFusion Applications.
When you create a feed
You specify the feed data in either of the following ways:
By putting all metadata and entry or item data in a single structure specified by the name attribute.
By putting the metadata in a structure specified by the properties structure and the entries or items as rows in a query object specified by the query attribute.
You save the resulting feed XML in one or both of the following places:
A file specified by the OutputFile attribute. The cffeed tag saves the data in UTF-8 encoding.
An variable specified by the xmlVar attribute
When you read a feed
You can save the feed data in any combination of the following forms:
By saving all entry or item data and metadata in a single structure specified by the name attribute
By saving entries or items as rows in a query object specified by the query attribute
By saving the metadata in a structure specified by the properties structure
By writing the feed XML in a file specified by the OutputFile attribute. The cffeed tag saves the data in UTF-8 encoding.
By saving the feed XML in a ColdFusion XML variable specified by the xmlVar attribute
When you save feed data, you do not have to save both the metadata and the entry or item data. You can specify only the properties attribute, or only the query attribute.

The following example creates an RSS feed. Enter fields for the feed title, link, and description elements. Also enter title, link, and description fields for one item. A second item is optional. The application saves the feed in a createRSSOutput.xml file in the feedTest subdirectory of the directory that contains the CFML page.

<!--- Generate the feed when the user submits a filled in form. ---> 
<cfif isDefined("Form.Submit")> 
    <cfscript> 
 
        // Create the feed data structure and add the metadata. 
        myStruct = StructNew(); 
        mystruct.link = form.link; 
        myStruct.title = form.title; 
        mystruct.description = form.description; 
        mystruct.pubDate = Now(); 
        mystruct.version = "rss_2.0"; 
 
        /* Add the feed items. A more sophisticated application would use dynamic variables 
            and support varying numbers of items. */ 
        myStruct.item = ArrayNew(1); 
        myStruct.item[1] = StructNew(); 
        myStruct.item[1].description = StructNew(); 
        myStruct.item[1].description.value = form.item1text; 
        myStruct.item[1].link = form.item1link; 
        myStruct.item[1].pubDate = Now(); 
        myStruct.item[1].title = form.item1title; 
        myStruct.item[2] = StructNew(); 
        myStruct.item[2].description = StructNew(); 
        myStruct.item[2].description.value = form.item2text; 
        myStruct.item[2].link = form.item2link; 
        myStruct.item[2].pubDate = Now(); 
        myStruct.item[2].title = form.item2title; 
 
    </cfscript> 
 
    <!--- Generate the feed and save it to a file and variable. ---> 
    <cffeed action = "create" 
        name = "#myStruct#" 
        outputFile = "feedTest/createRSSOutput.xml"  
        overwrite = "yes" 
        xmlVar = "myXML"> 
 
</cfif> 
 
<!--- The user input form. ---> 
<cfform format="xml" preservedata="yes" style="width:500" height="700"> 
    <cfformitem type = "text"> Enter The Feed Metadata</cfformitem> 
    <cfinput type = "text" label = "title" name = "title"  
        style = "width:435" required = "yes"> <br /> 
    <cfinput type = "text" label = "link" name = "link"  
        style = "width:435" required = "yes" validate = "url"> <br /> 
    <cftextarea name = "description"  
        style = "width:435; height:70" required = "yes" /> 
 
    <cfformitem type = "text"> Enter Item 1</cfformitem> 
    <cfinput type="text" label="title" name="item1title"  
        style="width:435" required="yes"> <br /> 
    <cfinput type="text" label="link" name="item1link"  
        style="width:435" required="yes" validate="url"> <br /> 
    <cftextarea name = "item1text"  
        style = "width:435; height:70" required = "yes" /> <br /> 
 
    <cfformitem type = "text"> Enter Item 2</cfformitem> 
    <cfinput type = "text" label = "title" name = "item2title" style = "width:435"> <br /> 
    <cfinput type = "text" label = "link" name = "item2link" style = "width:435"  
        validate = "url"> <br /> 
    <cftextarea name = "item2text" style = "width:435; height:70" /> <br /> 
     
    <cfinput type = "Submit" name = "submit" value = "Submit" > 
</cfform> 

The following application is a simple feed reader that handles RSS and Atom feeds. It displays the feed title; for each item or entry, it shows the title as a link, and shows the published date and the item or entry contents. To use this example to read the feed created by the first application, enter the URL for the file the application created, for example, http://localhost:8500/cffeed/feedTest/createRSSOutput.xml.

<!--- Process the feed data if the user submitted the form ---> 
<cfif isDefined("Form.Submit")> 
    <cffeed source = "#theURL#"  
        properties = "myProps"  
        query = "myQuery"> 
 
    <!--- Display the feed output.  
            Use conditional logic for to handle different feed formats. ---> 
    <cfoutput> 
        <h2>#myProps.title#</h2> 
    </cfoutput>     
    <cfoutput query = "myQuery"> 
        <cfif myProps.version IS "atom_1.0"> 
            <h3><a href = "#linkhref#">#title#</a></h3> 
            <b>Published:</b> #DateFormat(publisheddate)#</p> 
        <cfelse> 
            <h3><a href = "#rsslink#">#title#</a></h3> 
            <b>Published:</b> #publisheddate#</p> 
        </cfif> 
        #content#</p> 
    </cfoutput> 
</cfif> 
 
<!--- The form for specifying the feed URL or file ---> 
<cfform name = "SetFeed" preserveData = "yes"> 
        Enter Feed URL:  
        <cfinput type = "text" size = "60" name = "theURL"><br><br> 
        <cfinput type = "Submit" name = "submit" value = "Submit"> 
</cfform>