Section 7.3. Producing Atom Feeds

7.3. Producing Atom Feeds

Because it is still in its infancy, the Atom Syndication Format has few libraries available to make its generation a simple matter. Unlike RSS, with its years of development, people haven't had the time or opportunity to build Perl modules or the like. The few that do exist are invariably out of date or will be by the time you read this book. With this in mind, therefore, there is little point in detailing those that do exist. By the time Atom goes to Version 1.0, there will be simpler alternatives, and we'll cover those in later editions of this book. Preorder now!

From that you'll see, of course, that using a library for the creation of Atom feeds is overkill. For most simple uses, you're perfectly well off using a series of print commands or using a templating system as if you were producing ordinary RSS.

Producing Atom with Perl

Perl is the one language with at least a framework of two Atom creation libraries. Ben Trott's XML::Atom and Tim Appnel's XML::Atom::Syndication are both very promising starts. But both are, at time of writing, either incomplete or out of date. Keep an eye on them, though, as they sport both good beginnings and fine authors.

7.3.1. Validating Atom Feeds

Atom's strict structure, and the fact that by the time the shouting is over, there will be only one version to get people's knickers in a twist, means that validation is easy. The Feed Validator, at http://feedvalidator.org/, is the one-stop shop for such needs. Written by Sam Ruby and Mark Pilgrim, both leading brains of the syndication world, it produces extremely useful results. Test your feeds often.