NEW Modified RSS News Feed Hack

Hack originally posted by: Xyphen - RSS News Feed Hack
Modified by: wolfstream - Modified RSS News Feed Hack

I am posting this up as a new hack because of the major changes made to how the script works. Also, I didn't want people to get confused as to which one to download since there were 3 different versions on the original post.

Xyphen released the original version, then wolfstream modified the script and corrected some errors. After that, I modified wolfstreams version to change how posts were inserted. Now the post count will increase, posts will be able to be searched, and similiar threads will work.

RSS News Feed Hack for vB 3.0.x. As long as vBulletin doesn't change the database structure much, this should be good for the next release also, and those to come.

Allows you to have a live RSS news feed (such as one from Google or CNET) in a forum. The user that posts it will basically be a bot, which *should* only be used for posting the news, but you can even make it for a regular user.

Comments are welcome! Support provided through this thread.

Latest Version:
- 1.26 - for PHP 4.3.0 & above
- 1.26a - for PHP prior to 4.3.0

vBulletin Versions:
- 3.0.0
- 3.0.1

PHP Versions:
- > 4.3.0
- < 4.3.0

Installation Overview:
- Files to edit: (2) /admincp/index.php, /includes/functions_newpost.php
- Files to upload: (4) rss.php, admincp/rss_admin.php, includes/RSS/class.RSS.php, includes/RSS/rss_update.php
- Queries to run: (4) in rss_install.php

History:
Version 1.26 (23 June 2004 - Slapyo, Natch)
- listing of bot's more intuitive (Natch)
- hopefully fixed duplicate problem (Slapyo)
- stripped html tags from title and description (Slapyo)

Version 1.25 (12 May 2004 - Slapyo)
- fix for &quot; showing up
- logs action in scheduled task log if turned on

Version 1.24 (20 April 2004 - Slapyo)
- posts now deleted with delete_thread function
- post counts updated when using delete all news

Version 1.23 (14 April 2004 - Slapyo)
- added ability to delete bots
- cleaned up includes
- fix for PHP versions prior to 4.3.0 calling html_entity_decode()

Version 1.22 (13 April 2004 - Slapyo)
- duplicate posts problem fixed
- fix for problem with ' appearing as \'

Version 1.21 (12 April 2004 - Slapyo)
- bot will not be subscribed to posts now

Version 1.2 (11 April 2004 - Slapyo)
- posts now inserted with build_new_post function

Version 1.1 (28 March 2004 - wolfstream)
- file edits taken down to 1
- cron script included

Version 1.0 (28 January 2004 - Xyphen)
- original release

Common RSS Feeds:
- Yahoo!
- CNET.com
- BBC
- Wired News
- The Register
- Ars Technica
- All Headline News

[Slapyo]

ok bobby, i have looked at the feeds. the 2 that are not working do not have a pubDate field. the new code in 1.26 changed how a news feed was marked as "old". instead of having to match the pubDate AND the title. now it has to match the pubDate OR the title. so if there is no pubDate, no worries...it can still match the title.

it could be that those news feeds aren't updated frequently? not sure. the only thing i noticed was that the feeds not having pubDate.

[scottct1]

Ok I need help...

I run a SatelliteTV related Website, I only want to pull news relating to SatelliteTV, so in this regard lets say we want news on DirecTV.

I found the following search below which pulls all the DirecTV news.

http://www.rocketnews.com/news/Rocke...=directv&age=0

The problem is it does not pull the description, instead all's that I see in the message is VIEW THE ENTIRE ARTICLE.

How do I get it to show the descrption that is included.

Thanks

[Slapyo]

that is using rss 2.0 and i think the version of rss that is supported in the script right now is .91.

rss .91:

<channel>
	<item>
		<title></title>
		<link></link>
		<pubDate></pubDate>
		<description></description>
	</item>
</channel>

rss 2.0:

<channel>
	<item>
		<title></title>
		<link></link>
		<pubDate></pubDate>
		<description><![CDATA[    ]]></description>
	</item>
</channel>

although it should still work and your description would include CDATA stuff in them. not sure why the description is not coming up.

[Bobby S]

Originally Posted by Slapyo

ok bobby, i have looked at the feeds. the 2 that are not working do not have a pubDate field. the new code in 1.26 changed how a news feed was marked as "old". instead of having to match the pubDate AND the title. now it has to match the pubDate OR the title. so if there is no pubDate, no worries...it can still match the title.

it could be that those news feeds aren't updated frequently? not sure. the only thing i noticed was that the feeds not having pubDate.

Both feeds are updated daily, almost without fail. I'll have a look into anything I may have changed that might affect them.

Cheers D.

:up:

[Slapyo]

lemme know if you figure anything out. i'll keep lookin at it as well.

[sjau]

Originally Posted by Deimos

Has anyone else had a problem where the rss just stops updating?
It was working ok, then suddenly it stopped reporting on the 29th of June, yet nothing has changed?
The news feed I was getting was the bbc one.

Mine stopped also. It displays: Next update on July 08 2004 12:45

What message should appear if you run it manually from the admincp?

And where can I change that "View entire article"?

[notorious]

Would someone be able to help with this:
I'm getting the following errors whe I tr to run the schedule task:

Warning: main(./rss.php): failed to open stream: No such file or directory in /homepages/4*/d********/htdocs/forum/admincp/cronadmin.php on line 56

Fatal error: main(): Failed opening required './rss.php' (include_path='.:/usr/local/lib/php') in /homepages/4*/d*******/htdocs/forum/admincp/cronadmin.php on line 56

This is what I have on line 56:
require_once($nextitem['filename']);

and I'm getting this on the rss.php:

Fatal error: Call to undefined function: log_cron_action() in /homepages/4*/d********/htdocs/forum/Rss.php on line 7

Which is:
log_cron_action('RSS News Feed Posted', $nextitem);

Any Help would be appriciated

[smsmasters]

Originally Posted by sjau

Mine stopped also. It displays: Next update on July 08 2004 12:45

What message should appear if you run it manually from the admincp?

And where can I change that "View entire article"?

Same here, I've checked the BBC news feeds url manually and there are new news on it. However the news feed bot doesnt update, it's been 1 week now! The yahoo news feed works ok tho.

[RS25com]

So does this work on 3.03? I'm thinking about installing, but want to be sure before I do!

[Slapyo]

check to see if the BBC news feed changed their format. if they have that might be the cause of the problem.

@notorious, the only thing i can tell you is to double and triple check that you uploaded the files to the proper locations as well as made the proper file edits.

@RS25.com, it should work on 3.03 ... as long as there are no major changes to the forum it should work on any 3.x i'm thinking.