NAME

UnixODBC::RSS.pm - Create RSS output from a UnixODBC query.

SYNOPSIS

    use UnixODBC ':all';
    use UnixODBC::RSS;

    my $rdf = new UnixODBC::RSS;  

    $rdf -> Channel ({'title' => 'feed_title',
                      'description' => 'feed_description',
                      'link' => 'url'});
                     
    $rdf -> ChannelImage ('url' => 'image_url',
                          'title' => 'alt_title',
                          'description' => 'image_description');

    $rdf -> TextInput ({'title' => 'resource_title',
                        'description' => 'resource_description',
                        'name' => 'resource_name',
                        'link' => 'resource_uri'});

    $rdf -> ColumnHeadings ($array_ref);

    $rdf -> Syn ({'updatePeriod' => 'hourly',
                  'updateFrequency' => 1,
                  'updateBase' => '2000-01-01T12:00+00.00'});


    $rdf -> ItemColumns ({'column_name_of_title_content' => 'title',
                         'column_name_of_description_content' => 'description',
                         'column_name_of_name_content' => 'name',
                         'column_name_of_link_content' => 'link'});

    # @resultset is an array of row references.
    $rdf -> Output (\@resultset, *STDOUT);  

DESCRIPTION

UnixODBC::RSS.pm formats query results as RSS RDF output.

The Channel() method's argument is an anonymous hash or hash reference that provides RSS channel identification for <channel> and member tags: <title>, <description>, and <url>.

ChannelImage() optionally provides information about an image resource. An <image><link> member content is identical to the <channel><link> member content.

The method, ItemColumns(), takes as its argument an anonymous hash or hash reference. Each key-value describes the result set column that provides content for an <item> member: <title>, <name>, <description>, or <link>.

Syn() optionally adds syndication extensions to the output. The content of "updatePeriod" may be: "hourly," "daily," "weekly," "monthly," or "yearly." The positive integer value of, "updateFrequency," is the number of, "updatePeriod," time units between updates. The content of, "updateBase," is a W3C-format date-time stamp.

ColumnHeadings() saves a query's column headings as an array reference. Refer to the example below.

The TextInput() arguments, given as a hash reference, provide the content of a <textinput> section.

Output() takes as its arguments the result set as an array reference and an output filehandle.

Creating a RSS RDF file follows approximately these steps.

  # Allocate Environment, Connection, and statement handles, and connect 
  # to DSN.... 

  $r = SQLPrepare ($sth, $Query, length ($Query));
  $r = SQLExecute ($sth);

  my $ncols;

  $r = SQLNumResultCols ($sth,$ncols);

  my ($col, $buf, $rfetch, $rget, $colarrayref, @rowarray, $rlen, $n);

  my $colheadref = new_array_ref ();

  # Get column headings

  for ($col = 1; $col <= $ncols; $col++) {
      $r = SQLColAttribute ($sth, $col, $SQL_COLUMN_NAME, $buf, 
                          $SQL_MAX_MESSAGE_LENGTH, $rlen, $n);
      $$colheadref[$col - 1] = $buf;
  }

  $rss -> ColumnHeadings ($colheadref);

  # Get column data

  while (1) {
      $rfetch = SQLFetch ($sth);
      last if $rfetch == $SQL_NO_DATA;
      $colarrayref = new_array_ref ();
      for ( $col = 1; $col <= $ncols; $col++) {
          $rget = SQLGetData ($sth, $col, $SQL_CHAR, $buf, 
                         $SQL_MAX_MESSAGE_LENGTH, $rlen);
          $$colarrayref[$col - 1] = $buf;
      }
      push @rowarray, ($colarrayref);
  }

  $rss -> Output (\@rowarray, *STDOUT);

  sub new_array_ref { my @a; return \@a; }

VERSION INFORMATION AND CREDITS

Version 0.06

Copyright © 2004, 2008 Robert Kiesling, rkies@cpan.org.

Licensed under the same terms as Perl. Refer to the file, "Artistic," for details.

BUGS

Does not perform validation and does not check for required content.

SEE ALSO

UnixODBC(3), XML::RSS(3), rssoutput(1)