rss_py

A Python module to generate valid RSS 2.0 feeds.

Installation

# In root rss_py folder
pip install .

Generate an RSS feed

r = rss_py.build(
    title="Pesky's blog",
    link="https://blog.pesky.com/",
    description="A collections of Peksy's ramblings.",
    items=[
        {
            "title": "CAF trains for the MerwedeLingelijn",
            "pubDate": datetime.datetime(2024, 3, 23, 2, 20, 23, tzinfo=datetime.imezone.utc),
            "description": "<p>The MerwedeLingelijn stretches 49km from Dordrecht to Gorinchem across the Drechtsteden, Molenlanden, and Gorinchem (DMG) regions in Zuid Holland. The line is mostly single-track with passing opportunities at most stations. Like other public transport modes in the area, the trains on the MerwedeLingelijn are operated by Qbuzz.</p>",
            "link": "https://blog.pesky.moe/posts/2024-03-24-qbuzz-caf/"
        },
        {
            "title": "Good transit: Coverage and Frequency",
            "pubDate": datetime.datetime(2024, 3, 3, 6, 1, 00, tzinfo=datetime.timezone.utc),
            "description": "When examining passenger mobility, there are many angles from which to explore effective transportation systems: service reliability, cleanliness, comfort, cost, transit coverage, service frequency, and more. While this topic is extensive, I will specifically focus on the coverage of a public transit network within an area and the significant role that frequency plays in it. I will be using the public transit system in the region of Utrecht, which is operated by Qbuzz under the name U-OV, as a demonstration. The region includes nine municipalities and a population of over 700,000. A total of 46 routes are run by U-OV, four of which are light rail and the rest are bus.",
            "link": "https://blog.pesky.moe/posts/2024-03-03-coverage-frequency/"
        }
    ]
)
print(r)

Best practices

guid

Items should contain a guid and this is usually a permalink. If no guid is specified the package will use the item's link value to set the guid. See more details about the guid element at the W3C's Feed Validation Service.

Identifying a feed's URL

It's good practice to include atom:link and rel="self" in the <channel>. To set this include the feeds URL with the atomSelfLink parameter when calling build. For example:

    rss_py.build(
        title="Title goes here",
        link="https://example.com/"
        atomSelfLink="https://example.com/rss.xml"
    )

This will add the Atom namespace along with the atom:link and appropriate parameters to the channel. To learn more about atom:link see the W3C's Feed Validation Service.

Setting dates

RSS feeds use dates in the RFC-822 format which include a timezone offset or three letter code. With rss_py you can simply pass a timezone-aware Python datetime object for parameters that require dates and times such as lastBuildDate or an items pubDate. Here are some examples of how to create them dynamically in Python:

from datetime import datetime, timezone
# Current time in UTC to datetime object
datetime.now(timezone.utc)

# Convert timestamp in UTC to datetime object
datetime.fromtimestamp(1723990968, tz= timezone.utc))

# Create datetime object from a specific date and time
datetime(2024, 8, 18, 14, 42, 56, tzinfo=timezone.utc)

Read more about RSS dates from W3C's Feed Validation Service.