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Article Bot · **Released**: 07-10-2004

Article Bot
by velocd

Article Bot is a script that allows you to assign a user account (preferably an exclusive one) to an article bot that will post RSS feeds in select forums at designated intervals. These articles are derived from RSS (Really Simple Syndication) feeds.

RSS files are assigned to article bots, as well to individual forums, which in turn directs what, when and where your article bot will post.

Features

Works with RSS versions: 0.9x, 2.0, 1.0, and Atom 0.3
AdminCP interface for adding/modifying/deleting article bots & rss feeds
Designate intervals (in minutes) to each RSS feed for when your article bot will post them.
Requires only 1 file edit (admincp/index.php), allowing ease of upgrading your vBulletin
without having to remodify files.
Easy to install. Works best in conjunction with crontab (contab help is inside install.html)

News

7/25/04 - Version 1.1 Released
- Bug Fixes
  - Replaced htmlspecialchars() with htmlentities() in articlebot.php to fully convert special entities from descriptions.
  - Added trim() to thread titles, to prevent double threads from being posted that are merely off by whitespace.
  - New table articlebot_rss_cache for storing a copy of article bot threads, for quicker checking of doubles when posting new threads.
  - Threads are checked in articlebot_rss_cache, so you can permanently remove them from the thread table (you don't have to "soft delete") without worrying about the bot replicating them.
  - Other minor bugs.
- Features
  - New installer/upgraders for doing the SQL part automatically.
  - Added "label" field to add/modify RSS interface, that allows you to tag a label, e.g. [yahoo], to the beginning of threads, unique to each RSS feed. This might help for better distinction of RSS feeds.
  - Added an option to toggle on/off of building similar threads per RSS feed. Some RSS feeds could hault the script if the building of similar thread results for that feed takes too long (maybe the article thread title is too vague, and matches a lot of results--my guess is it's only a problem on large forums).
  - Added an option to toggle on/off skipping of articles that don't contain descriptions.
  - Regular expression search and replace for article titles and descriptions. This grants you much flexability to filter out things you don't want in your titles or descriptions (given you have some regex experience, I will try to post some patterns in due time.. feel free to add yours )
7/11/04 - Version 1.0 Released

Upgrading

To upgrade, reupload the new PHP and MagpieRSS parser files to their places on your server. Upload upgrade_vx-x (replace the x's with the version you are upgrading to) to /path/to/forums/admincp/, and then execute that script.

Files

3 screenshots attached
articlebot_v1.zip
- install.html, logo.gif
- articlebot_admin.php
- articlebot/
  - rss_cache.inc
  - rss_fetch.inc
  - rss_parse.inc
  - rss_utils.inc
  - extlib/
    - Snoopy.class.inc

RSS Feeds

There are several in the install.html, but if you're looking for more than you could ever want, check out NewsIsFree's directory:

http://www.newsisfree.com/sources/bycat/

Remember to click install if you use this hack.

Also be sure to read through the what you haven't of the thread before asking a question, for it may have been answered.

kyouens · #**622** 05-02-2005, 09:29 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by greenhybrid

So, the postintervals tell the cron whether to process the threads at that time, correct?

Earlier today, my bot posted the same article 3 times. How can this be prevented?

That's correct about the postintervals. And the doubleposting--I am having the same problem, and it's pissing me off to no end. I'm trying to pin down why it's happening, and if I do, I'll let you know.

greenhybrid · #**623** 05-02-2005, 09:31 PM

In my case, it's because there is more than one instance of the article in the RSS

The bot should be able to check if the title would be a duplicate; if so, don't post.

kyouens · #**624** 05-02-2005, 11:38 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by greenhybrid

In my case, it's because there is more than one instance of the article in the RSS

The bot should be able to check if the title would be a duplicate; if so, don't post.

That's what it does, in theory. Here's the relevant code, I think:

PHP Code:


			
        $result_threads = $DB_site->query("

            SELECT title

            FROM articlebot_rss_cache

            WHERE dateline >= $timecut

        ");





        while ($thread = $DB_site->fetch_array($result_threads))

        {

            $threads[] = trim($thread['title']);

        }

By any chance, are the articles that are being duplicated in your installation only those that have a long title (at least longer than the others?) I'm trying to see what the duplicated threads have in common. On mine, it seems to be only the articles with the longest titles.

kyouens · #**625** 05-03-2005, 09:12 PM

Quote:

By any chance, are the articles that are being duplicated in your installation only those that have a long title (at least longer than the others?) I'm trying to see what the duplicated threads have in common. On mine, it seems to be only the articles with the longest titles.

Check this out: In my forum, the longest threads have names like this:

Immunohistochemical Stains for p63 and alpha-Methylacyl-CoA Racemase, Versus a Cocktail Comprising Both, in the Diagnosis of Prostatic Carcinoma: A Comparison of the Immunohistochemical Staining of 430 Foci in Radical Prostatectomy and Needle Biopsy

However, the feed itself gives the title as this (ignore the html characters):

Immunohistochemical%20Stains%20for%20p63%20and%20
alpha-Methylacyl-CoA%20Racemase%2C%20Versus%20a%20
Cocktail%20Comprising%20Both%2C%20in%20the%20Diagn osis%20
of%20Prostatic%20Carcinoma%3A%20A%20Comparison%20o f%20
the%20Immunohistochemical%20Staining%20of%20430%20 Foci
%20in%20Radical%20Prostatectomy%20and%20Needle%20
Biopsy%20Tissues.

These are not identical. If you look, the last part of the feed's title has a few extra words. For some reason, the title is getting truncated as it is being written into the forum, which is why the script, which I believe uses the title and postdate to determine identical-ness, fails to see these as identical.

Now to find the responsible code and drop a major load of hurt on this stupid bug.

Update: The problem is that the title row in the post table (of vbulletin) is of type varchar(250), and some of the full titles are >250 characters. To include the full titles, I may need to change the column type to TEXT. I wonder if this will wreck my vbulletin due to unforeseen badness...I will ask around before I try it and will update the thread.

Update: Fixed the doubleposting of articles with long titles issue. Go into PHPmyadmin and change the column type of the "title" row of the articlebot_rss_cache table from Varchar(255) to "text". That eliminates the 255 character limit for titles in the feed cache and stops the doubleposting. Note that the thread title ON THE POST will still be limited to 254 characters, but this shouldn't be a problem at all for most people.

|Jordan| · #**626** 05-04-2005, 12:15 AM

I'm using running the article bot in a cron tab. I receive this error when it runs:

/bin/sh: line 1: /usr/local/lib/php: is a directory

The instructions state the php dir, well that is the php dir (i checked with my host). Any ideas what's wrong?

kyouens · #**627** 05-04-2005, 01:24 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by MyIS_Jordan

I'm using running the article bot in a cron tab. I receive this error when it runs:

/bin/sh: line 1: /usr/local/lib/php: is a directory

The instructions state the php dir, well that is the php dir (i checked with my host). Any ideas what's wrong?

that is the php directory, but you need to run the php executable binary file. On many servers, it's at the address /usr/local/bin/php

Give that a shot.

memobug · #**628** 05-04-2005, 05:16 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by kyouens

Check this out: In my forum, the longest threads have names like this:

Immunohistochemical Stains for p63 and alpha-Methylacyl-CoA Racemase, Versus a Cocktail Comprising Both, in the Diagnosis of Prostatic Carcinoma: A Comparison of the Immunohistochemical Staining of 430 Foci in Radical Prostatectomy and Needle Biopsy

There would appear to be a limit of 250-255 characters or so in the forum titles. Maybe it's a limit set in the hack but probably it's a database limitation, too.

Regards,

Matt

kyouens · #**629** 05-04-2005, 05:18 AM

Yeah, it's a databse limitation. From my above post

Quote:

Update: Fixed the doubleposting of articles with long titles issue. Go into PHPmyadmin and change the column type of the "title" row of the articlebot_rss_cache table from Varchar(255) to "text". That eliminates the 255 character limit for titles in the feed cache and stops the doubleposting. Note that the thread title ON THE POST will still be limited to 254 characters, but this shouldn't be a problem at all for most people.

Thanks for the help though.
Kenny

memobug · #**630** 05-09-2005, 09:36 AM

I am not sure my article bot is 100% up-to-date - I installed 10/15/04 and article bot has a comment in it dated articlebot.php, v1.1, 07/25/04

However each time the bot makes a post I get emailed the following error. I am 98% sure it is coming from my friend the 'bot.

Q1: Does anyone else get these ( I mean obviously it is trying to add an array to a scalar - but why?)
Q2: Any idea what could be the actual cause?

Quote:

Invalid SQL:
UPDATE user
SET posts = posts + Array
WHERE userid = 0

mysql error: Unknown column 'Array' in 'field list'

mysql error number: 1054

Date: Thursday 17th of March 2005 12:00:14 AM
Script: http://
Referer:
Username: Unregistered
IP Address

Marco van Herwaarden · #**631** 05-09-2005, 12:07 PM

Are you running PHP5?

X vBulletin 3.8.12 by vBS Debug Information
Page Generation 0.05711 seconds Memory Usage 2,330KB Queries Executed 25 (?)
More Information
Template Usage: (1)SHOWTHREAD (1)ad_footer_end (1)ad_footer_start (1)ad_header_end (1)ad_header_logo (1)ad_navbar_below (1)ad_showthread_beforeqr (1)bbcode_php (7)bbcode_quote (1)footer (1)forumjump (1)forumrules (1)gobutton (1)header (1)headinclude (1)modsystem_post (1)navbar (6)navbar_link (120)option (1)pagenav (1)pagenav_curpage (4)pagenav_pagelink (3)pagenav_pagelinkrel (11)post_thanks_box (11)post_thanks_button (1)post_thanks_javascript (1)post_thanks_navbar_search (11)post_thanks_postbit_info (10)postbit (11)postbit_onlinestatus (11)postbit_wrapper (1)spacer_close (1)spacer_open (1)tagbit_wrapper Phrase Groups Available: global inlinemod postbit posting reputationlevel showthread	Included Files: ./showthread.php ./global.php ./includes/init.php ./includes/class_core.php ./includes/config.php ./includes/functions.php ./includes/class_hook.php ./includes/modsystem_functions.php ./includes/functions_bigthree.php ./includes/class_postbit.php ./includes/class_bbcode.php ./includes/functions_reputation.php ./includes/functions_post_thanks.php Hooks Called: init_startup init_startup_session_setup_start init_startup_session_setup_complete cache_permissions fetch_threadinfo_query fetch_threadinfo fetch_foruminfo style_fetch cache_templates global_start parse_templates global_setup_complete showthread_start showthread_getinfo forumjump showthread_post_start showthread_query_postids showthread_query bbcode_fetch_tags bbcode_create showthread_postbit_create postbit_factory postbit_display_start post_thanks_function_post_thanks_off_start post_thanks_function_post_thanks_off_end post_thanks_function_fetch_thanks_start post_thanks_function_fetch_thanks_end post_thanks_function_thanked_already_start post_thanks_function_thanked_already_end fetch_musername postbit_imicons bbcode_parse_start bbcode_parse_complete_precache bbcode_parse_complete postbit_display_complete post_thanks_function_can_thank_this_post_start pagenav_page pagenav_complete tag_fetchbit_complete forumrules navbits navbits_complete showthread_complete
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