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RSS scraper with immediate RESTful access to feed items

Project description

rss2rest
========

- Configure your feeds in the `settings` file
- Turns RSS feeds into a RESTful API with the use of TastyPie and Feedparser (perfect for use with `backbone.js`)
- Map feeds to Django models, few convenienve models are provided (see below)
- Write your own mdels representing a feed item, you just need to provide a mapping from feed nodes to model fields
- Harvest feeds using `./manage.py syncdb` command
- Access your feeds direct via tastypie API resource

![](https://secure.travis-ci.org/gump/rss2rest.png "Travis CI build status")

Installation
============

Install via PIP:

$ pip install rss2rest


Add to your `INSTALLED_APPS` the following:

INSTALLED_APPS = [
...,
'tastypie',
'rss2rest',
]

Define your feeds:

RSS2REST_FEEDS = [
{'feed': 'http://feedurl/',
'model': 'rss2rest.FeedItem'},
]

Add RESTful routing to your `urls.py`:

from rss2rest.api import FeedItemResource
feed_item_resource = FeedItemResource()
urlpatterns += patterns('rss2rest',
(r'^api/', include(feed_item_resource.urls)),
)

Usage
=====

Synchronise Feeds:

./manage.py syncrss2rest

Consume feeds go to:

http://127.0.0.1/rss2rest/api/<resource_name>


Models for your feeds
=====================

In order for the feed to be exposed as a RESTful resource the feed must be mapped to a django model.
`rss2rest` provides a few pre-defined models that fit some typical scenarios.


**Generic feed item models:**

* `FeedItem` - generic feed item
* `VimeoFeedItem` - maps well to Vimeo Likes RSS feed
* `FlickrFeedItem` - maps well to Flickr Likes RSS feed


**Writing your own feed item model:**

* Create your own model for the feed to provide custom mapping, etc
* Simply extend the abstract `AbstractFeedItem` class present in the `rss2rest.models` file.
* Put `MAPPING` dictionary as a class property and you're ready to go
* Make sure you put your new model class name (as string in the format of `app.ModelName`) into the `RSS2REST_FEEDS`
setting
* If your model is pretty generic and maps to a public feed - make sure you submit it as a pull request with
accompanying tests to be included in the `rss2rest`


**Generic tasty pie resources**

* `FeedItemResource` - resource name: `feed_item`
* `FlickrItemResource` - resource name: `flickr`
* `VimeoItemResource` - resource name: `vimeo`

**Custom resources**

* You can build your custom resource as per [Tastypie's documentation](http://django-tastypie.readthedocs.org/en/latest/index.html)

Contribute
==========

Set up in development mode:

$ git clone git://github.com/gump/rss2rest.git
$ cd rss2rest
$ mkvirtualenv rss2rest
$ python setup.py develop
$ cd sandbox/
$ cp local_settings_sample.py local_settings.py
$ ./manage.py syncdb
$ ./manage.py test rss2rest

Planned development
===================

* More tests for all types of feeds
* More generic feed item models to cater for other common use cases
* `published` flag on abstract model to drive presence in the RESTful API (configurable with publish/unpublish flag
using django admin panel); way to define default behaviour using a setting
* Defining your feeds in the database

Project details


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