RSS and Atom programming
RSS is a family of XML file formats for web syndication used by news websites and weblogs. The acronym stands for one of the following standards:
- Rich Site Summary (RSS 0.9x)
- RDF Site Summary (RSS 0.9 and 1.0)
- Really Simple Syndication (RSS 2.x)
Usage
RSS is used to provide items containing short descriptions of web content together with a link to the full version of the content. This information is delivered as an XML file called RSS feed, RSS stream, or RSS channel. An orange rectangle with the letters XML () or RSS is often used as a link to a site's RSS feed.
In 2004 and 2005, use of RSS spread to many major news organizations, including Reuters and the Associated Press, after several years of use by weblogs, technology publications and other early adopters. The first online news site to use RSS feeds was Variety.com in June of 2002. Under various usage agreements, providers allow other websites to incorporate their "syndicated" headline or headline-and-short-summary feeds.
RSS is widely used by the weblog community to share the latest entries' headlines or their full text, and even attached multimedia files. (See podcasting, broadcatching and MP3 blogs.)
A program known as a feed reader or aggregator can check RSS-enabled webpages on behalf of a user and display any updated articles that it finds. RSS saves users from having to repeatedly visit favorite websites to check for new content or be notified of updates via email. It is now very common to find RSS feeds on most major web sites, as well as many smaller ones.
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