How does this box receive and display dynamic content?

This content box contains information in the form of an RSS (Rich Site Summary) feed. RSS is the most popular format for distributing dynamic news headlines to the web. In this manner, up to date news and information taken from several different sources can be featured together on your myMUSC home page.

How does the RSS feed work?

The RSS feed on this page works in this manner. Every hour, a cron job (a process that executes on a set schedule) connects our server to a server containing current information that we would like to display inside one of myMUSC's content boxes. Our server requests updated information from the remote content server, which is returned in the form of an XML (eXtensible Markup Language) file.

XML is a markup language for documents that contain structured information, information that contains both content (words, pictures and so on) and information about what role that the content plays (for example, content in a section that is marked as a header will have a different purpose than content that is located in a section that is marked as a footer). The XML specification defines a standard way to add this markup of content to documents.

What might a typical RSS file look like?

The XML file returned to myMUSC by a remote site might look something like the following example.

The first section of the XML file defines the XML version and recognizes the file as using a certain RDF (Resource Description Framework), which describes the relationship of the data that will be contained within the file to follow.

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<rdf:RDF
xmlns:rdf="http://www.w3.org/1999/02/22-rdf-syntax-ns#"
xmlns="http://my.netscape.com/rdf/simple/0.9/">

The second XML element on the RSS file contains the title, link and a short description of the remote site from which dynamic information is to be pulled.

<channel>
<title>futurists.com</title>
<link>http://futurists.com</link>
<description>the news source for information about the future of technology
</description>
</channel>

The next element is an image element which can be used to display an image accompanied by a link. If a user clicks on this image, the page specified in the link portion of this element will be opened in the user's browser.

<image>
<title>futurists.com</title>
<url>http://futurists.com/images/fut.jpg</url>
<link>http://futurists.com</link>
</image>

Normally, the bulk of an RSS file will contain multiple dynamic item elements. There are usually numerous item elements in an RSS file. These elements contain the actual channel content which is updated as new events occur. Each item contains a title and a link to the location where the actual content, in the form of a web page, can be viewed.

<item>
<title>New technology discovered</title>
<link>http://futurists.com/news/2001/01/21/18005.html</link>
</item>

After the item elements, the end of the file may be reached. Before this point, any other dynamic entities that the remote server would like to add may also be included in the RSS file.

</rdf:RDF>

What does myMUSC do with the RSS file it receives?

myMUSC parses the XML file that is received by the remote server - that is, a program examines the file and, based on what tags it sees, grabs the information that it deems important. In this case, it is the various item elements within the file. Other information within the RSS file, for example the image element, are ignored by myMUSC's parser.

myMUSC then displays the information that it receives within the content box on your myMUSC page. In this manner, myMUSC can ensure that the design and format of the information received from multiple different servers delivering dynamic RSS feeds will look consistant and retain a sense of order on your page.

Where can I find further information about RSS feeds?

Further information about RSS feeds, how they work, and what possible RSS feeds you might want to implement into your own web pages can be found at the following locations:

  • Webreference.com's RSS tutorial: A useful tutorial that illustrates how to create an RSS file.
  • My.Userland.Com: A news site that uses RSS files to receive news from hundreds of remote locations.
  • The RSS-Dev eGroup: A forum for RSS design and development.