WCI RSS 2.0 feed file - Web Content Integrator

WCI RSS 2.0 feed file

Web Content Integrator consumes RSS 2.0 files, typically with file extensions of either .rss or .xml. WCI does not impose any file naming conventions on the feed producer.
The most commonly used media type options are...

"text/xml"
"application/rss+xml"

If the character encoding cannot be determined correctly, WCI with throw errors when parsing the feed.
Following the XML prolog, an RSS 2.0 file begins with a single <rss> element. This element has one required attribute, "version", which must be set to "2.0". The file must also contain a single <channel> element which contains a number of sub-elements that provide some metadata about the feed as a whole. The <channel> element must contain one or more <item> elements. The <item> elements in turn contain sub-elements which provide information about the content being syndicated. For example:
<?xml version="1.0"?>

<rss version="2.0">

 <channel>

  <title>Sample Feed</title>
  <link>http://www.ibm.com/feeds/sample.rss</link>
  <description>An example RSS Feed</description>
  <lastBuildDate>Tue, 31 Oct 2006 10:31:00 EST</lastBuildDate>

  <item>
   <title>News Item Two</title>
   <link>http://www.ibm.com/news/two.htm</link>
   <description> Summary of the second news article    </description>
   <pubDate> Tue, 31 Oct 2006 10:31:00 EST</pubDate>
  </item>

  <item>
   <title>News Item One</title>
   <link>http://www.ibm.com/news/one.htm</link> 
   <description> Summary of the first news article.  </description>
   <pubDate> Tue, 31 Oct 2006 10:30:00 EST</pubDate>
  </item>

  </channel>

 </rss>
If non-ascii data is used in a feed, then encoding="UTF-8" must be specified in the feed: <?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>

Channel-level Elements

Each RSS feed file must contain only one channel element. There are a number of allowable sub-elements of the channel which provide some metadata about the channel itself. The following elements are either required or used by the Web Content Integrator.

title Name of the feed. Required by the RSS 2.0 specification. Not used by the WCI.
link URL pointing to the Web page containing the feed. Required by the RSS 2.0 specification. Not used by the WCI.
description Brief description of the content of the channel. Required by the RSS 2.0 specification. Not used by the WCI.
lastBuildDate Data and time stamp representing the last time the content of the feed was changed. This date, as well as any others in the feed, must conform to the RFC 822 format. Optional element according to the RSS 2.0 specification, however some feed reader applications may depend on it. In certain cases the WCI will store the value in the lastBuildDate element and then pass it back to the feed producer on the next request as a way of indicating which version of the feed it has already syndicated.

Item-level Elements

For the purposes of the Web Content Integrator, each item in the feed represents an item type. The following item types can be created or updated via the feed:

Content items
Site Areas
Taxonomies
Categories
Component

The following sub-elements are either required or used by the WCI:

title The value of this element is stored in the Name field of Web content items. For content items this will become part of the URL to the content page. As this will be used in the Name field of Web content items, the title can contain only alphanumeric characters (a-z, A-Z, 0-9), spaces, and the following characters: $ - _ . ! () , This is a required sub-element.
link URL to the source content. In some cases it will be used as the base URL from which any relative links embedded in the content are resolved.
description The value of this element is stored in the Description field of Web content items. Although the RSS specification allows entity-encoded or escaped HTML to be placed in this element, the Description field in Web content items is not designed to store HTML. For the purposes of the WCI this element must only contain plain text.
pubDate Value must be an RFC 822 time and date stamp representing the time that the item was added to, or updated in, the feed. The WCI will use this date in combination with the <guid> element to determine whether or not it has already processed the item. Each time an item is updated via the feed the value of the <pubDate> in the feed entry will be updated as well to indicate that something has changed. This is a required sub-element.
guid ID to uniquely identify the item. This will often be a unique ID from the source content management system. The WCI will maintain a mapping of this ID to the item's internal WCM ID. This is necessary in order to be able to correctly update or delete items that already exist in WCM. This field is case sensitive and can contain any string of characters up to a maximum 256 characters in length. The isPermaLink attribute will be ignored. This is a required element.
category Hierarchical meta data tag describing the content. The value of this element will be translated into taxonomy and category items in WCM. If the category tree specified in the <category> element does not already exist in WCM it will be created automatically by the WCM when the feed entry is processed. The RSS 2.0 specification defines an optional domain attribute for the category element. Feed producers can use this attribute to store the name of the Web content library where the category tree is to be created. This element only applies to content items. A single <item> may contain multiple category elements. As this will be used in the Name field of Web content taxonomy and category items, the title can contain only alphanumeric characters (a-z, A-Z, 0-9), spaces, and the following characters: $ - _ . ! () , This is a required sub-element.
author Author's e-mail address. The specification only allows a single <author> element per item. Generally this will be the author of the content item in the source content management system. The WCM will attempt to resolve the e-mail address into the common name of a portal user and then store the name of that user in the author field the WCM item. If this element is not present in the feed, or if the e-mail address cannot be resolved, then the name of the system user will stored in the author field of the WCM item instead.

Parent: IBM Web Content Integrator

title	Name of the feed. Required by the RSS 2.0 specification. Not used by the WCI.
link	URL pointing to the Web page containing the feed. Required by the RSS 2.0 specification. Not used by the WCI.
description	Brief description of the content of the channel. Required by the RSS 2.0 specification. Not used by the WCI.
lastBuildDate	Data and time stamp representing the last time the content of the feed was changed. This date, as well as any others in the feed, must conform to the RFC 822 format. Optional element according to the RSS 2.0 specification, however some feed reader applications may depend on it. In certain cases the WCI will store the value in the lastBuildDate element and then pass it back to the feed producer on the next request as a way of indicating which version of the feed it has already syndicated.

title	The value of this element is stored in the Name field of Web content items. For content items this will become part of the URL to the content page. As this will be used in the Name field of Web content items, the title can contain only alphanumeric characters (a-z, A-Z, 0-9), spaces, and the following characters: $ - _ . ! () , This is a required sub-element.
link	URL to the source content. In some cases it will be used as the base URL from which any relative links embedded in the content are resolved.
description	The value of this element is stored in the Description field of Web content items. Although the RSS specification allows entity-encoded or escaped HTML to be placed in this element, the Description field in Web content items is not designed to store HTML. For the purposes of the WCI this element must only contain plain text.
pubDate	Value must be an RFC 822 time and date stamp representing the time that the item was added to, or updated in, the feed. The WCI will use this date in combination with the <guid> element to determine whether or not it has already processed the item. Each time an item is updated via the feed the value of the <pubDate> in the feed entry will be updated as well to indicate that something has changed. This is a required sub-element.
guid	ID to uniquely identify the item. This will often be a unique ID from the source content management system. The WCI will maintain a mapping of this ID to the item's internal WCM ID. This is necessary in order to be able to correctly update or delete items that already exist in WCM. This field is case sensitive and can contain any string of characters up to a maximum 256 characters in length. The isPermaLink attribute will be ignored. This is a required element.
category	Hierarchical meta data tag describing the content. The value of this element will be translated into taxonomy and category items in WCM. If the category tree specified in the <category> element does not already exist in WCM it will be created automatically by the WCM when the feed entry is processed. The RSS 2.0 specification defines an optional domain attribute for the category element. Feed producers can use this attribute to store the name of the Web content library where the category tree is to be created. This element only applies to content items. A single <item> may contain multiple category elements. As this will be used in the Name field of Web content taxonomy and category items, the title can contain only alphanumeric characters (a-z, A-Z, 0-9), spaces, and the following characters: $ - _ . ! () , This is a required sub-element.
author	Author's e-mail address. The specification only allows a single <author> element per item. Generally this will be the author of the content item in the source content management system. The WCM will attempt to resolve the e-mail address into the common name of a portal user and then store the name of that user in the author field the WCM item. If this element is not present in the feed, or if the e-mail address cannot be resolved, then the name of the system user will stored in the author field of the WCM item instead.