*However, the code uses $catname for both the naming of the output file and for the naming of the title so be sure to either hack it to keep the output file the same or change just the title section, or, bear in mind you output files will change to have the word 'and' instead of '&'...

Graeme.

Strange as pretty much all categories fire out similar info and previous whitespaces haven't been an issue (%20), got some digging to do to find the guilty chars...

Graeme.

Your script doesn't work properly, rss.php has to be on script root with CHMOD of 777 and test folder also has to be with CHMOD of 777

I get an error on line 19 of rss.php even with CHMOD of 777 in both.

$fp = fopen($file ,"w");

Even tough it creates 92 xml files they don't work as a feed, just a simple page (opera doesn't identify them as feeds)
Btw, how you can insert the feeds on the layout so that the user can add that category as a feed and not all ? Insert manualy a link in each category to the xml?

ambglb, thanks for the suggestion. My classifieds is based in Taiwan (Big5 encoding). Fortunately, most of the ads will be written in English, but special characters (like that bullet point) could still sneak in. I am adding instructions in my Add Ad pages advising sellers to stick to the standard alphanumeric character set. But for those who cut--n-paste their ads, they may ignore it.

At this early stage, it shouldn't be a problem to edit errant ads since traffic is low. However, looking ahead, this could turn out to be a real pain in the neck

$sitetitle_rss=$sitetitle;
$sitetitle_rss = str_replace('illegal character', 'new character', $sitetitle_rss);

or

$sitetitle_rss=$sitetitle;
$sitetitle_rss = str_replace('&', '_', $sitetitle_rss);
$sitetitle_rss = str_replace('&', '', $sitetitle_rss);

the first one changes all occurnces of & in the site title to _
the second on deletes all the &
just keep adding lines for each character you want to change, you could also add full words like

$sitetitle_rss=$sitetitle;
$sitetitle_rss = str_replace('swear word', '', $sitetitle_rss);
$sitetitle_rss = str_replace('cursing', 'c**sing', $sitetitle_rss);

you could also create an array of all the illegal characters you want to change and use that in the first varible

I have the same problem with the illegal characters and I'm looking for a solution to eliminate them but I didn't find any so far. Keep me posted if you find one.

Regards,
Atheas

Something which may be an issue is the feed generating scripts's use of the category name. Some of my category names have spaces - like "Men seeking Men". I can change this to "m4m", but what about my "Language Exchange" category? I am afraid I'll be making too many sacrifices. I'll look into changing the choice of feed name from the Category's name to the Category's ID number.

This doesn't seem to be a problem after all - since the browser simply renders spaces as "%20"

But another illegal character issue that I have encountered using the original RSS Feed generating script is when someone uses a special character in their classified ad - it could crash the xml. What happened once was someone used a bullet list in their ad description. The bullet character they used was part of the extended character set. The RSS generating script processed as usual, but the illegal bullet passed through. When I tried to pull the feed, it stopped at the illegal bullet

My classified website will allow input in Big5 Chinese characters, so I am worried that there may be an illegal character used in some Chinese characters.

My question is, how I can I limit the input on my classifieds so that only XML-friendly characters will be used?

I had to tweak it a bit, bit it seems to work

Here's what I needed to do:

1. for some reason, my server has trouble with the "?" character - after I run the feed generating script, the resulting xml pages have an error with it. I get around the problem by substituting the ? in the XML tags of your script with a variable.

2. I also have problems with the double line break in the first xml tags - so you might have noticed above in the second line that I highlighted in red that I removed the "\n" at the beginning of the line

Except for these 2 adjustments, the feeds generation worked fine

Something which may be an issue is the feed generating scripts's use of the category name. Some of my category names have spaces - like "Men seeking Men". I can change this to "m4m", but what about my "Language Exchange" category? I am afraid I'll be making too many sacrifices. I'll look into changing the choice of feed name from the Category's name to the Category's ID number.

<?
session_start();
include_once("admin/inc.php");
if ($validation == 1) { $val_string = " AND valid = 1"; } else { $val_string = ""; }
if ($validation == 1) { $val_string2 = " where valid = 1"; } else { $val_string2 = ""; }

$sql_cat = "select $cat_tbl.catname from $cat_tbl order by catid";
$sql_getcat = mysql_query ($sql_cat);
$num_cat = mysql_num_rows($sql_getcat);

for ($i=0; $i<$num_cat; $i++)
{
      $row = mysql_fetch_array($sql_getcat);
$catname = $row["catname"];

$x = "test/" . $catname;
$file = $x . ".xml";

$fp = fopen($file ,"w");
fwrite($fp, "\n<?xml version=\"1.0\" encoding=\"UTF-8\"?>\n");
fwrite($fp, "\n<rss version=\"2.0\">\n");
fwrite($fp, "<channel>\n");
fwrite($fp, "<title>TITLE</title>\n");
fwrite($fp, "<link>http://".$url."/</link>\n");
fwrite($fp, "<description>DESCRIPTION</description>\n");
fwrite($fp, "<language>en</language>\n");
fwrite($fp, "<lastBuildDate>".strftime("%a, %d %b %Y %T %Z",time())."</lastBuildDate>\n");
fclose($fp);
}

$sql_links = "select $ads_tbl.siteid,$ads_tbl.sitetitle,$ads_tbl.sitedescription,$ads_tbl.datestamp, $cat_tbl.catname from

$ads_tbl inner join $cat_tbl on $ads_tbl.sitecatid = $cat_tbl.catid $val_string2 order by datestamp desc, siteid desc";
$sql_result = mysql_query ($sql_links);
$num_links = mysql_num_rows($sql_result);

for ($i=0; $i<$num_links; $i++)
{
   $sitetitle = "";
      $row = mysql_fetch_array($sql_result);
      $siteid = $row["siteid"];
      $sitetitle = strip_tags($row["sitetitle"]);
$sitetitle = strtolower($sitetitle);
$sitetitle = ucfirst($sitetitle);
      // only displaying first 150 characters of the ad text
      $sitedescription = substr($row["sitedescription"],0,1000);
$sitedescription = strtolower($sitedescription);
$sitedescription = ucfirst($sitedescription);
      $catname = $row["catname"];
      //$datestamp = strftime("%a, %d %b %Y %T %Z",$row["datestamp"]);
     
      $datestamp = strftime("%a, %d %b %Y %T %Z",strtotime($row["datestamp"]));

$x = "test/" . $catname;
$file = $x . ".xml";

$fp = fopen($file ,"a");
fwrite($fp, "<item>");
fwrite($fp, "<title>".$catname." : ".$sitetitle."</title>\n");
fwrite($fp, "<link>http://".$url."/detail.php?siteid=".$siteid."</link>\n");
fwrite($fp, "<description>".$sitedescription."</description>\n");
fwrite($fp, "<pubDate>".$datestamp."</pubDate>\n");
fwrite($fp, "</item>");
fclose($fp);
}

$sql_cat = "select $cat_tbl.catname from $cat_tbl order by catid";
$sql_getcat = mysql_query ($sql_cat);
$num_cat = mysql_num_rows($sql_getcat);

for ($i=0; $i<$num_cat; $i++)
{
      $row = mysql_fetch_array($sql_getcat);
$catname = $row["catname"];

$x = "test/" . $catname;
$file = $x . ".xml";

$fp = fopen($file ,"a");
fwrite($fp, "\n</channel>\n");
fwrite($fp, "\n</rss>\n");
fclose($fp);
}
?>

Run this file from your IE window; it should create in the test folder xml files for every categories.

This script is in "beta" version if I may say so; I just created it and I didn't had time to tweak it  so please post here every error you get or improvment you make.

Setting up the cronjob results in the following error in CronJob log:

/public_html/rss.php: line 1: ?: No such file or directory
/public_html/rss.php: line 2: syntax error near unexpected token `;'
/public_html/rss.php: line 2: `session_start(); '

Any suggestions?

"The XML page cannot be displayed
Cannot view XML input using XSL style sheet. Please correct the error and then click the Refresh button, or try again later."

I think because i use non english caracters, is there a way for the script work with non engish caracters and acents like

You can create a cron job to periodically run the script to generate rss.xml. Then this is no different than you index.html file accessed by two people simultaneously (which happens all the time)

I'm new to rss, but the script seems to work for me

I'm wondering if it's possible to get the script  to run at the same time as update.php is run? I'm limited in the number of cron jobs I can set up on my server.

AndyC