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

[Bobby S]

Originally Posted by Deimos

Thanks Slap, it'd be awesome if you could..

Slapyo,

Just to let you know that I can know pick up the Scotsman feeds that were previously a problem - the ones with the ' in them. It doesnae remove the spurious characters, but it doesnae duplicate, and it picks up the new items. Godsend and Top work fellow!

I'm now having problems with other feeds not adding anything new in. I know there could be a million reasons for this, so I'll report back when I've investigated a bit more so as not to waste your time.

Thanks again, an appreciative php tube

[Slapyo]

bobby, go ahead and post the links. maybe someone else will know or can look at it, or i can check it out as well. get a few heads in on this thinking about it.

[gmtalk]

I have been playing around and testing this. For the longest I was not having duplicate posts/threads for certain feeds and was only having problems with one feed duplicating. Now it is going nuts. I downloaded the latest version, removed the version that was in there and put in this latest one.

Feeds I am having issues with.

http://rss.crash.net/crash_1.xml (F1 Racing feed)

and

http://www.just-auto.com/affiliates/features_rss.asp

Now I have had issues with that just auto feed before and it cleared up, but now just came back last night. The crash.net feed is wierd. I have 4 other crash feeds that are not having any issues and have updated through out the day. It is only screwing up on the one listed above and only repeating one thread over and over, not everyone off that feed. The one repeating has not been updated on their site at all and is actually a few days old.

[Natch]

Do other RSS readers have the same problem ? with it constantly updating ?

[gmtalk]

Originally Posted by Natch

Do other RSS readers have the same problem ? with it constantly updating ?

I have been testing that out and I would have to say no on the crash.net. The Just-auto did it only 2 times in the last week(checked for updates hourly just like the forum), but on my test forums it hit every call.

[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.

[sjau]

Where can I actually change the "View the entire article" to something else?

[Bobby S]

Originally Posted by Slapyo

bobby, go ahead and post the links. maybe someone else will know or can look at it, or i can check it out as well. get a few heads in on this thinking about it.

I've added seperate users for each newsfeed [a list of ex girlfriends, top idea I thought] and the all post into my forum here:

http://www.masshibsteria.com/vb/forumdisplay.php?f=2

Now the Scotsman feed [Gillian] works perfectly http://www.masshibsteria.com/vb/showthread.php?t=7560
http://sport.scotsman.com/football_h...cfm?format=rss

*since the last updated release, it duplicated prior to that

The Official Hibs website feed [Caroline] used to work perfectly, but since the file update it doesnae work. I ran the first cron job and it took the feeds, but since then nothing
http://www.masshibsteria.com/vb/showthread.php?t=7504
http://www.hibs.org.uk/news/index.xml

I've also added a bbc feed [Belinda] which has the same problems as the Official feed.
http://www.masshibsteria.com/vb/showthread.php?t=7496
http://news.bbc.co.uk/rss/sportonlin...ian/rss091.xml

****Now I think about it, I edited some code earlier in the thread, so as not to check for time: That might be the problem, so I'll go back and change it.******

Edit: I don't think that's the problem https://vborg.vbsupport.ru/showpost....&postcount=272 - I've overwritten that file with the new one.

[Slapyo]

been busy this weekend, will have a better chance to look at all this on tuesday sorry.

[Bobby S]

Originally Posted by Slapyo

been busy this weekend, will have a better chance to look at all this on tuesday sorry.

No rush Donnie: if you can when you can would be most appreciated.

Getting the scotsman one to work was a BIG help for me, thank yous.

[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.