Awesome

feedRead

If you came here looking for a super-simple way to read a feed in Node.js, this is no longer the simplest or best API I have. The new package is <a href="https://github.com/scripting/reallysimple">reallySimple</a> it's open source too, and it builds on this package, so this is still being maintained.

If you're using this package and are happy, keep using it. ;-)

6/22/23 by DW

What is this?

It's a <a href="https://www.npmjs.com/package/davefeedread">Node package</a> that contains everything you need to read a feed.

It builds on the <a href="https://github.com/danmactough/node-feedparser">feedParser package</a>. It's simpler to call, no need to master <a href="https://nodejs.org/api/stream.html#stream_stream">streams</a> or <a href="https://www.npmjs.com/package/iconv">iconv</a>.

You can also parse a string, so you can deal with files that contain feed data, not just feeds accessible over the web. Or the feed text could come from a database.

Because we use feedParser, we handle all the formats and variability that it handles.

It's an entry-level feed parser that will be useful to people who haven't mastered all of JavaScript.

Why?

Sometimes you need to quickly read a feed and do something with it, and don't have time for a major project. This package is for those times.

It also provides good sample code for more advanced feed reading projects.

Example code

There are two very basic examples, one that parses a feed that it reads <a href="https://github.com/scripting/feedRead/blob/master/examples/readurl/read.js">over the web</a>, and one that it reads from a <a href="https://github.com/scripting/feedRead/blob/master/examples/readfile/read.js">local file</a>.

A third example is a realistic <a href="https://github.com/scripting/feedRead/blob/master/examples/cloud/read.js">feed polling app</a>, it checks a feed every five minutes and writes the JSON structure out to a local disk. It automatically supports <a href="https://en.blog.wordpress.com/2009/09/07/rss-in-the-clouds/">rssCloud</a>, so you get realtime updates if the feed supports that protocol, which is part of RSS 2.0.