xast-util-feed

xast-util-feed

xast utility to build (web) feeds (RSS, Atom).

This package focusses on a small set of widely used and supported parts of feeds. It has a few good options instead of overwhelming with hundreds of things to configure. If you do need more things, well: this utility gives you a syntax tree, which you can change.

It’s good to use this package to build several feeds and to only include recent posts (often 15-20 items are included in a channel). You should make a channel for all your posts; when relevant, separate channels per language; and potentially, channels per post type (e.g., separate ones for blog posts, notes, and images).

Just using either RSS or Atom is probably fine: no need to do both.

Note that this package is ESM only: Node 12+ is required to use it and it must be imported instead of required.

Install

npm:

npm install xast-util-feed

Use

Say we have the following module, example.mjs

import {rss} from 'xast-util-feed'
import toXml from 'xast-util-to-xml'

var tree = rss(
  {
    title: 'NYT > Top Stories',
    url: 'https://www.nytimes.com',
    feedUrl: 'https://rss.nytimes.com/services/xml/rss/nyt/HomePage.xml',
    lang: 'en',
    author: 'The New York Times Company'
  },
  [
    {
      title: 'Senate Balances Impeachment Trial With an Incoming President',
      url:
        'https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/14/us/politics/impeachment-senate-trial-trump.html',
      description: 'Senate leaders etc etc etc.',
      author: 'Nicholas Fandos and Catie Edmondson',
      published: 'Fri, 15 Jan 2021 01:18:49 +0000',
      tags: ['Senate', 'Murkowski, Lisa', 'Trump, Donald J']
    }
  ]
)

console.log(toXml(tree))

Now, running node example.mjs yields (pretty printed):

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<rss version="2.0" xmlns:dc="http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/" xmlns:atom="http://www.w3.org/2005/Atom">
  <channel>
    <title>NYT > Top Stories</title>
    <description></description>
    <link>https://www.nytimes.com/</link>
    <lastBuildDate>Fri, 15 Jan 2021 11:38:12 GMT</lastBuildDate>
    <dc:date>2021-01-15T11:38:12.052Z</dc:date>
    <atom:link href="https://rss.nytimes.com/services/xml/rss/nyt/HomePage.xml" rel="self" type="application/rss+xml" />
    <language>en</language>
    <dc:language>en</dc:language>
    <copyright>© 2021 The New York Times Company</copyright>
    <dc:rights>© 2021 The New York Times Company</dc:rights>
    <item>
      <title>Senate Balances Impeachment Trial With an Incoming President</title>
      <dc:creator>Nicholas Fandos and Catie Edmondson</dc:creator>
      <link>https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/14/us/politics/impeachment-senate-trial-trump.html</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/14/us/politics/impeachment-senate-trial-trump.html</guid>
      <pubDate>Fri, 15 Jan 2021 01:18:49 GMT</pubDate>
      <dc:date>2021-01-15T01:18:49.000Z</dc:date>
      <category>Senate</category>
      <category>Murkowski, Lisa</category>
      <category>Trump, Donald J</category>
      <description>Senate leaders etc etc etc.</description>
    </item>
  </channel>
</rss>

API

rss(channel, data)

Build an RSS feed.

channel

See Channel.

data

List of Entry objects.

Returns

Root — xast root.

atom(channel, data)

Build an Atom feed. Same API as rss otherwise.

Channel

Data on the feed (the group of items).

channel.title

Title of the channel (string, required, example: Zimbabwe | The Guardian).

channel.url

Full URL to the site (string, required, example: 'https://www.theguardian.com/world/zimbabwe').

channel.feedUrl

Full URL to this channel (string?, example: 'https://www.adweek.com/feed/'). Make sure to pass different ones to rss and atom! You should define this.

channel.description

Short description of the channel (string?, example: Album Reviews). You should define this.

channel.lang

BCP 47 language tag representing the language of the whole channel (string?, example: 'fr-BE'). You should define this.

channel.author

Optional author of the whole channel. Either string, in which case it’s as passing {name: string}. Or an object with the following fields:

• name (string, example: 'Acme, Inc.' or 'Jane Doe')
• email (string?, example: [e-mail])
• url (string?, example: 'https://example.org/john')

url is used in atom, not in rss.

channel.tags

Categories of the channel (Array.<string>?, example: ['JavaScript', 'React']).

Entry

Data on a single item.

entry.title

Title of the item (string?, example: 'Playboi Carti: Whole Lotta Red'). Either title, description, or descriptionHtml must be set.

entry.description

Either the whole post or an excerpt of it (string?, example: 'Lorem'). Should be plain text. descriptionHtml is preferred over plain text description. Either title, description, or descriptionHtml must be set.

entry.descriptionHtml

Either the whole post or an excerpt of it (string?, example: '<p>Lorem</p>'). Should be serialized HTML. descriptionHtml is preferred over plain text description. Either title, description, or descriptionHtml must be set.

entry.author

Entry version of channel.author. You should define this. For atom, it is required to either set channel.author or set author on all entries.

entry.url

Full URL of this entry on the site (string?, example: 'https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/roberta-flack-first-take').

entry.published

When the entry was first published (Date or value for new Date(x), optional).

entry.modified

When the entry was last modified (Date or value for new Date(x), optional).

entry.tags

Categories of the entry (Array.<string>?, example: ['laravel', 'debugging']).

entry.enclosure

An enclosure, such as an image or audio, is an object with the following fields:

• url (string, example: 'http://dallas.example.com/joebob_050689.mp3') — Full URL to the resource
• length (number, example: 24986239) — Resource size in bytes
• type (string, example: 'audio/mpeg') — Mime type of the resource

Security

XML can be a dangerous language: don’t trust user-provided data.

Related

• xast-util-to-xml — serialize xast to XML
• xast-util-sitemap — build a sitemap
• xastscript — create xast trees

Contribute

See contributing.md in syntax-tree/.github for ways to get started. See support.md for ways to get help.

This project has a code of conduct. By interacting with this repository, organization, or community you agree to abide by its terms.

License

MIT © Titus Wormer