[Web4lib] RSS and HTML (href) links

[Marcie Pierson]

I'm not quite sure I understand the problem, but I might have a solution. First, my question: Does your link not work in the RSS feed? Is the link live in the blog post?
 
The solution I use when creating XML/RSS by hand is to replace the brackets (<a href="">) with the character entities &lt; and &gt; (&lt;a href=""&gt;). Does that help?
 
Marcie Pierson
Reference Librarian
Grafton Public Library
35 Grafton Common 
Grafton, MA 01519
508-839-4649
508-839-7726 FAX

________________________________

From: web4lib-bounces at webjunction.org on behalf of Engel, Ryan
Sent: Wed 4/16/2008 3:32 PM
To: web4lib at webjunction.org
Subject: [Web4lib] RSS and HTML (href) links



Hi



We have a small collection of internal websites, and we share some
content between them via RSS.  This content sharing has been fairly
successful so far, but there is one piece of the puzzle that I cannot
make fit no matter what I try, making me wonder I'm trying to use RSS in
a way that it isn't meant to work.



Here's my setup:

I have a blog, and the blogging software (WordPress) I use creates a
feed (RSS 2 and Atom) that contains the full text of my post.

Within the body of a hypothetical blog post, I include a basic href=""
link to another website.



When I view the source of the RSS feed, I see two versions of my blog
post's content; one is bracketed with <description> tags and DOES NOT
contain my href link; the other is bracketed with <content:encoded> tags
and DOES contain my href link.  When I look at the RSS in a feed reader,
the href link does not appear.  The RSS feed does contain the usual link
from the title back to my blog post.



Aside from the title link, it seems that RSS does not currently support
href links; is that true?  If so, is there a way to re-assert links as
clickable links in the body content either in the feed directly or once
the feed reader reads the feed?  Am I trying to use RSS in a way that it
isn't meant to work?



I've tried searching for clues via Google search already with no useful
results, though I've had difficulty coming up with meaningful search
phrases.



Thanks



Ryan Engel

Librarian | CNN News Research and Archives | Atlanta

ryan.engel at turner.com

_______________________________________________
Web4lib mailing list
Web4lib at webjunction.org
http://lists.webjunction.org/web4lib/