FeedBundle - A bundle to build RSS/Atom feeds from entities

Features

• Generate XML feeds (RSS & Atom formats)
• Items based on your entities
• Read XML feeds and populate your Symfony entities
• Easy to configurate & use
• Available on packagist (to install via composer)
• Dump your feeds into a file via a Symfony console command

Installation

Add this to deps

[EkoFeedBundle]
    git=https://github.com/eko/FeedBundle.git
    target=/bundles/Eko/FeedBundle

Add this to app/AppKernel.php

<?php
    public function registerBundles()
    {
        $bundles = array(
            ...
            new Eko\FeedBundle\EkoFeedBundle(),
        );

        ...

        return $bundles;
    }

Add this to app/autoload.php

<?php
$loader->registerNamespaces(array(
   ...
    'Eko'             => __DIR__.'/../vendor/bundles'
));

Configuration (only 3 quick steps!)

1) Edit app/config.yml

The following configuration lines are required:

eko_feed:
    feeds:
        article:
            title:       'My articles/posts'
            description: 'Latests articles'
            link:        'http://vincent.composieux.fr'
            encoding:    'utf-8'
            author:      'Vincent Composieux' # Only required for Atom feeds

2) Implement the ItemInterface

Each entities you will use to generate an RSS feed needs to implement Eko\FeedBundle\Item\Writer\ItemInterface or Eko\FeedBundle\Item\Writer\RoutedItemInterface as demonstrated in this example for an Article entity of a blog:

Option A: Eko\FeedBundle\Item\Writer\ItemInterface

<?php

namespace Bundle\BlogBundle\Entity;

use Eko\FeedBundle\Item\Writer\ItemInterface;

/**
 * Bundle\BlogBundle\Entity\Article
 */
class Article implements ItemInterface
{

In this same entity, just implement those required methods:

• public function getFeedItemTitle() { … } : this method returns entity item title
• public function getFeedItemDescription() { … } : this method returns entity item description (or content)
• public function getFeedItemPubDate() { … } : this method returns entity item publication date
• public function getFeedItemLink() { … } : this method returns entity item link (URL)

Option B: Eko\FeedBundle\Item\Writer\RoutedItemInterface

Alternatively, if you need to make use of the router service to generate the link for your entity you can use the following interface. You don't need to worry about injecting the router to your entity.

<?php

namespace Bundle\BlogBundle\Entity;

use Eko\FeedBundle\Item\Writer\RoutedItemInterface;

/**
 * Bundle\BlogBundle\Entity\Article
 */
class Article implements RoutedItemInterface
{

In this entity, you'll need to implement the following methods:

• public function getFeedItemTitle() { … } : this method returns entity item title
• public function getFeedItemDescription() { … } : this method returns entity item description (or content)
• public function getFeedItemPubDate() { … } : this method returns entity item publication date
• public function getFeedItemRouteName() { … } : this method returns the name of the route
• public function getFeedItemRouteParameters() { … } : this method must return an array with the parameters that are required for the route
• public function getFeedItemUrlAnchor() { … } : this method returns the anchor that will be appended to the router-generated url. Note: can be an empty string.

3) Generate the feed!

The action now takes place in your controller. Just declare a new action with those examples lines:

<?php

namespace Bundle\BlogBundle\Controller;

use Symfony\Bundle\FrameworkBundle\Controller\Controller;
use Symfony\Component\HttpFoundation\Request;
use Symfony\Component\HttpFoundation\Response;

class BlogController extends Controller
{
    /**
     * Generate the article feed
     *
     * @return Response XML Feed
     */
    public function feedAction()
    {
        $articles = $this->getDoctrine()->getRepository('BundleBlogBundle:Article')->findAll();

        $feed = $this->get('eko_feed.feed.manager')->get('article');
        $feed->addFromArray($articles);

        return new Response($feed->render('rss')); // or 'atom'
    }
}

Please note that for better performances you can add a cache control.

Go further with your feeds

Add some custom channel fields

You can add custom fields to main channel by adding them this way:

<?php
$feed = $this->get('eko_feed.feed.manager')->get('article');
$feed->add(new FakeEntity());
$feed->addChannelField(new ChannelField('custom_name', 'custom_value'));

Add some custom items fields

You can add custom items fields for your entities nodes by adding them this way:

<?php
$feed = $this->get('eko_feed.feed.manager')->get('article');
$feed->add(new FakeEntity());
$feed->addItemField(new ItemField('fake_custom', 'getFeedItemCustom'));

You can also add group item fields using this way, if your method returns an array:

<?php
$feed = $this->get('eko_feed.feed.manager')->get('article');
$feed->add(new FakeEntity());
$feed->addItemField(
    new GroupItemField('categories', new ItemField('category', 'getFeedCategoriesCustom'))
);

Of course, getFeedItemCustom() method needs to be declared in your entity.

Moreover, entities objects can be added separatly with add method:

<?php
$feed = $this->get('eko_feed.feed.manager')->get('article');
$feed->add($article);

Dump your feeds by using the Symfony console command

You can dump your feeds into a .xml file if you don't want to generate it on the fly by using the php app/console eko:feed:dump Symfony command.

Here are the options :

Option	Description
--name	Feed name defined in eko_feed configuration
--entity	Entity to use to generate the feed
--filename	Defines feed filename
--orderBy	Order field to sort by using findBy() method
--direction	Direction to give to sort field with findBy() method
--format	Formatter to use to generate, "rss" is default
--limit	Defines a limit of entity items to retrieve

An example with all the options:

php app/console eko:feed:dump --name=article --entity=AcmeDemoBundle:Fake --filename=test.xml --format=atom --orderBy=id --direction=DESC

This will result:

Start dumping "article" feed from "AcmeDemoBundle:Fake" entity...
done!
Feed has been dumped and located in "/Users/vincent/dev/perso/symfony/web/test.xml"

For any question, do not hesitate to contact me and/or participate.

Read an XML feed and populate an entity

If you only want to read an XML feed, here is the way:

<?php
$reader = $this->get('eko_feed.feed.reader');
$feed = $reader->load('http://php.net/feed.atom')->get();

$feed will be a \Zend\Feed\Reader\Feed\FeedInterface that you can manipulate.

---

You can also populate an entity from an XML feed. This is very easy.

Just load the feed and call the populate method with your entity name which needs to implement Eko\FeedBundle\Item\Reader\ItemInterface, take a look on this example:

<?php
$reader = $this->get('eko_feed.feed.reader');
$items = $reader->load('http://php.net/feed.atom')->populate('MyNamespace\Entity\Name');

In this example, $items will be an array that will contains an array with your entities populated with the given feed content.

Contributors

• Vincent Composieux [email protected] (Twitter: @vcomposieux)

• Rob Masters [email protected]

• Anyone want to contribute ? Do not hesitate, you will be listed here!