Hi Peter
I’m more confused now. This format:
http://www.weather-watch.com/smf/index.php?topic=5683.10#msg38171
http://www.weather-watch.com/smf/index.php?topic=5683.9#msg38171
is the format of the tag. The tag in this feed has a different format. I’ve grabbed the item record for message 38171, see below:
<item>
<title><![CDATA[Re: Indoor Temperature MinMax option]]></title>
<link>http://www.weather-watch.com/smf/index.php?topic=5683.10#msg38171</link>
<description>
<![CDATA[
Will this be graphable in version 3?
Best wishes and thanks
gk]]>
</description>
<category><![CDATA[Weather Display Live]]></category>
<comments>http://www.weather-watch.com/smf/index.php?action=post;topic=5683.0</comments>
<pubDate>Tue, 19 Oct 2004 21:25:19 GMT</pubDate>
<guid>http://www.weather-watch.com/smf/index.php?topic=5683.msg38171#msg38171</guid>
</item>
As you can see the LINK tag uses the format you have shown and the GUID tag uses a different format. The LINK tag does change each time a new message is published in a thread. I can’t see anything in the RSS spec that says this has to stay the same. However, each instance of the GUID tag for a message in this feed always appears to be identical, which appears to be correct according to the spec, i.e. it uniquely identifies the item for ever. If you are assuming that the LINK tag is the item GUID then I could see why you’re having problems.
Yes, agreed, this is confusing! 
According to the RSS 0.92 “spec”, is not supported in RSS 0.92.
If a real is not available, intraVnews instead uses the tag as part of unique identification.
You could argue that there is a tag and that if it’s there, we should use it. Instead, we decided to stick to the standards and be unambiguous.
If the feed version were to be changed to RSS 2.0, everything would be fine as far as I can tell.
A convenient place to see which tag is supported for which version is here: http://rss-net.sourceforge.net/documents/version_comparison.html
I could be mistaken somewhere along the line though, but this is my interpretation.
Peter.
That makes sense. I’ve updated the discussion about this in the SMF beta testers area and I’ll let you know when I get a response from the developers. They’re usually pretty quick to respond.
I’ve actually suggested that they allow type=rss to mean a 0.92 feed (with no GUID) and type=rss2 to mean a 2.0 feed (with GUID). From your knowledge of RSS, does the feed look OK according to the v2.0 spec?
I just changed 0.92 to 2.0 and feedvalidator.org said it was valid.
The only thing I would add is a few descriptive fields in like
, , , (!!), and .
In the , I would add
These additions make your feed friendlier for RSS readers. is good for reducing bandwidth. Set it to 60 if you want RSS readers to check at most once an hour.
See Site Outline (RSS 2.0 at Harvard Law) for more info.
Peter.
Apparently the forum can generate a v2.0 feed. Use type=rss2 instead of type=rss, e.g.
http://www.weather-watch.com/smf/index.php?type=rss2;sa=recent;action=.xml;limit=30
Will seeing a true v2.0 feed fix this problem? I’m still persuing the devs about removing the superfluous tag in the v0.92 feed.
With the RSS 2 feed I’m getting no duplicates. That was easy
Peter.
Peter, Chris,
I’d like to thank you both very much for your persistance in getting this sorted. It really is appreciated. =D>
:wav:
Glad to be of service</smug door mode>
Which will only make sense if you’re a Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy fan.
