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]

what are the other feeds you are using? the only thing i can think of is in the feed that isn't working, the date field is called dc:date ... but in the script it is looking for pubDate.

what are the errors, or are there no errors showing up at all?

[Dontom]

no errors at all - just a blank page if i call rss.php

[Slapyo]

i think the problem is in the name of the date field. what is the url of the other news feeds you us?

[SnowBot]

All works fine on vb 3.0.1 if anyone wonders.

[jluerken]

Originally Posted by SnowBot

All works fine on vb 3.0.1 if anyone wonders.

I am using php 4.2.2 and changes the lines in /includes/RSS/rss_update.php like described but starting the task will result in the following error:

Fatal error: Cannot redeclare fix_unhtmlentities() (previously declared in /home/www/web1/html/forum/includes/RSS/rss_update.php:76) in /home/www/web1/html/forum/includes/RSS/rss_update.php on line 76

[ckaosII]

Donton wrote:

I have a problem with one feed - it just wont work (other feeds worked for me)
Can someone tell me whats wrong with this one?
http://www.procycling.de/news/news_rss.php

I have also problems with all news feeds containing:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="ISO-8859-1" ?>
- <rdf:RDF xmlns:dc="http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/" xmlns:h="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xmlns:hr="http://www.w3.org/2000/08/w3c-synd/#" xmlns:rdf="http://www.w3.org/1999/02/22-rdf-syntax-ns#" xmlns="http://purl.org/rss/1.0/">

I only got feeds containing:

<rss version="x.x">

to work 100%



Looks like it's only able to read: "RSS feeds" and NOT "RDF feeds" ?!

Is it possible to add support for RDF feeds to?

[Slapyo]

maybe later on ckaos ... i'll look into it.

i am still having a problem with the users who have a version of PHP prior to 4.3.0 ... the odd thing is the error that they get. it tells you that you can't redeclare the function, yet this is the only place the function is setup/called. you can changed the name to anything you want and it still gives this error. so i am not sure as to how i am redeclaring something even though it is the only time i have declared it. still working on it.

[rocket98]

Originally Posted by Slapyo

maybe later on ckaos ... i'll look into it.

i am still having a problem with the users who have a version of PHP prior to 4.3.0 ... the odd thing is the error that they get. it tells you that you can't redeclare the function, yet this is the only place the function is setup/called. you can changed the name to anything you want and it still gives this error. so i am not sure as to how i am redeclaring something even though it is the only time i have declared it. still working on it.

--------------------------

Slapyo, u fixed it for me. Moving the function outside the other else/if statements stopped the loop declaration. I still have the 4 bots running every 4 hours, but will set them to run every hour and see what happens. So far so good.

Thank you for your work on this one.

rocket98

[Slapyo]

ok, i am pretty sure i have the fix for users with a PHP version prior to 4.3.0. the only differences between the 2 sets of files i have uploaded are some comments.

- rss_bot_#.##.zip - download this if you have PHP 4.3.0 & above
- rss_bot_#.##a.zip - download this if you have PHP prior to 4.3.0

[Acido]

Originally Posted by Slapyo

ok, i am pretty sure i have the fix for users with a PHP version prior to 4.3.0. the only differences between the 2 sets of files i have uploaded are some comments.

- rss_bot_#.##.zip - download this if you have PHP 4.3.0 & above
- rss_bot_#.##a.zip - download this if you have PHP prior to 4.3.0

BIG THANX Slapyo !

Now i have not more problems with Quotes \" and not more duplications.

I'm using rss_bot1.23a with PHP 4.3.4