RSSKit

A Swift library for fetching, parsing and update RSS/Atom feed

Installation

Manually

It is not recommended to install the framework manually, but if you prefer not to use either of the aforementioned dependency managers, you can integrate RSSKit into your project manually. A regular way to use RSSKit in your project would be using Embedded Framework.

• Open up Terminal, cd into your top-level project directory, and run the folowing command “if” your project is not initialized as a git repository:

$ git init

• Add RSSKit as a submodule. In your favorite terminal, cd into your top-level project directory, and entering the following command:

$ git submodule add https://github.com/quan118/RSSKit.git

• Open the RSSKit folder, and drag RSSKit.xcodeproj into the Project Navigator of your app project, under your app project.

  It should appear nested underneath your application’s blue project icon. Whether it is above or below all the other Xcode groups does not matter.

• In Xcode, navigate to the target configuration window by clicking on the blue project icon, and selecting the application target under the “Targets” heading in the sidebar.

• In the tab bar at the top of that window, open the “Build Phases” panel.
• Expand the “Target Dependencies” group, and add RSSKit.framework.
• Click on the + button at the top left of “Build Phases” panel and select “New Copy Files Phase”. Rename this new phase to “Copy Frameworks”, set the “Destination” to “Frameworks”, and add RSSKit.framework of the platform you need.

Usage

Setting up the parser

Create parser:

// Create feed parser and pass the URL of the feed
let feedURL:NSURL = NSURL(string:"http://images.apple.com/main/rss/hotnews/hotnews.rss")
let feedParser:FeedParser = RSSFeedParser(feedURL:url)

Set delegate:

// Delegate must conform to `RSSFeedParserDelegate`
feedParser.delegate = self

Set the parsing type. Options are ParseType.Full, ParseType.ItemsOnly, ParseType.InfoOnly. Info refers to the information about the feed, such as it’s title and description. Items are the invididual items or stories.

// Parse the feeds info (title, link) and all feed items
feedParser.feedParseType = ParseType.Full

Set whether the parser should connect and download the feed data synchronously or asynchronously. Note, this only affects the download of the feed data, not the parsing operation itself.

// Connection type
feedParser.connectionType = ConnectionType.Asynchronously

Initiate parsing:

// Begin parsing
feedParser.parse()

The parser will then download and parse the feed. If at any time you wish to stop the parsing, you can call:

// Stop feed download / parsing
feedParser.stopParsing()

The stopParsing method will stop the downloading and parsing of the feed immediately.

Reading the feed data

Once parsing has been initiated, the delegate will receive the feed data as it is parsed.

optional func feedParserDidStart(parser:RSSFeedParser) // Called when data has downloaded and parsing has begun
optional func feedParser(parser:RSSFeedParser, didParseFeedInfo info:RSSFeedInfo) // Provides info about the feed
optional func feedParser(parser:RSSFeedParser, didParseFeedItem item:RSSFeedItem) // Provides info about a feed item
optional func feedParserDidFinish(parser:RSSFeedParser) // Parsing complete or stopped at any time by `stopParsing`
optional func feedParser(parser:RSSFeedParser, didFailWithError error: NSError) // Parsing failed

RSSFeedInfo and RSSFeedItem contains properties (title, link, summary, etc.) that will hold the parsed data. View RSSFeedInfo.swift and RSSFeedItem.swift for more information.

Available data

Here is a list of the available properties for feed info and item objects:

RSSFeedInfo

• info.title (String?)
• info.link (String?)
• info.summary (String?)

RSSFeedItem

• item.title (String?)
• item.link (String?)
• item.author (String?)
• item.date (NSDate?)
• item.updated (NSDate?)
• item.summary (String?)
• item.content (String?)
• item.enclosures (Array of Dictionary with keys url, type and length)
• item.identifier (String?)

Using the data

All properties of RSSFeedInfo and RSSFeedItem return raw data as provided by the feed. This content may or may not include HTML and encoded entities. If the content does include HTML, you could display the data within a UIWebView, or you could use the provided String category (String+HTML) which will allow you to manipulate this HTML content. The methods available for your convenience are:

// Convert HTML to Plain Text
// - Strips HML tags & comments, removes extra whitespace and decodes HTML character entities
public func stringByConvertingHTMLToPlainText() -> String

// Decode all HTML entities using GTM.
public func stringByDecodingHTMLEntities() -> String

// Encode all HTML entities using GTM
public func stringByEncodingHTMLEntities() -> String

License

RSSKit is released under the MIT license. See LICENSE for details.