Part 2: Getting Feed Information From the Data File With Python

[p] As the engine of the application, this program will need to perform the following tasks: [ul] [li] Receive user input (the name of the feed) [/li] [li] Retrieve the location of the feed (from the data file) [/li] [li] Retrieve the feed (from a web server) [/li] [li] Retrieve the some but not all pieces of information from the feed (the headlines and links) [/li] [li] Format the data for web publishing [/li] [li] Return the data to the PHP script for printing to the web page [/li] [/ul] [/p] [p] For it to fulfill these duties, the Python program will need to borrow code from a few libraries. We will need the following: [ul] [li] [b] string [/b]: to parse the data retrieved from the data file [/li] [li] [b] sys [/b]: to parse the user input [if CGI is used instead of PHP, then we need [b] cgi [/b] and [b] cgitb [/b], remembering to call cgitb.enable( if you feel a bit lost with this, see my tutorials on Python with PHP and Python CGI, respectively] [/li] [li] [b] urllib2 [/b]: this module is used for opening URLs and reading from them; we will obviously use it to retrieve the feed [/li] [li] [b] xml.dom [/b]: all RSS feeds come in XML format (it is the RSS standard), and we must be ready to parse it; for our purposes, we will be using a particular part of [b] xml.dom [/b] called [b] minidom [/b] (you will learn more about this later) [/li] [/ul] [/p] [p] So with that understanding, put these import declarations at the beginning of your program: [blockquote shade=yes] import string [br] import sys [br] import urllib2 [br] from xml.dom import minidom [br] [/blockquote] [/p] [p] If you are unsure about the reason for importing modules and how to do it, you should read [link url=/od/tutorial1/ss/pytutsyntax_9.htm] my discussion on importing modules [/link] from the Python Library. If you would like to know more about frequently used modules in the Python Library or are unsure of what it is, see [link url=http://python.about.com/od/pythonstandardlibrary/a/pylibrary.htm] my page on the subject [/link].[/p] _z_800_z_._z_/z/js/abb.txt_z_python_z__z_1_z_2093_z_1);