smd_xml : extract data from XML feeds

nardo · 2010-05-23 02:28:12

hey bloke, recently got a PHP error on my site (didn’t record at the time) but it was due to the data feed not being available (the server it was on was undergoing maintenance) – does the plugin have a way to die quietly if the data is not available?

(if it does, maybe there’s a more local reason for the error I got)

Bloke · 2010-05-23 08:05:18

nardo wrote:

does the plugin have a way to die quietly if the data is not available?

Not explicitly but I set a timeout of 10 seconds in there so, in theory (it’s difficult to test) it’s supposed to give up after that length of time and return nothing. If I can find a way to verify this is actually working — by making a local feed and putting the site in maintenance mode for example — I’ll see what the plugin does. And if it falls over for whatever reason I’ll see what I can do to fix it. Thanks for bringing this to my attention.

nardo · 2010-06-05 07:49:01

Manage to hit another level of 503 error today Stef!

Called a Google Spreadsheet in which I’d chucked a Textpattern image tag, just to see what would happen > got whirring cursor on webpage, then finally 503 error
Updated spreadsheet (i.e. removed tag!), tried to clear cache, etc … still 503 … went into PHPMyAdmin and deleted the two smd_xml rows in preferences table … still 503

What to try next?

Update fixed – I’d managed to set line_length attribute to “1” when I meant to change the cache_time attribute

Last edited by nardo (2010-06-05 07:50:59)

kevinpotts · 2010-06-29 03:12:52

Stef —

I have a good handle of XML and how your plugin works, but I am stuck. I want to pull in the time of sunset using Yahoo! Weather RSS feeds. This is the RSS feed for Benson, AZ. They display sunset as an attribute of a field, like this:

<yweather:astronomy sunrise="5:21 am"   sunset="7:31 pm" />

I’ve tried all kinds of combos with your plugin, but mostly it’s just epic fail across the board. Can you help?

net-carver · 2010-06-29 07:32:48

Kevin

slightly off topic, but php5 has functions to find the sunrise/sunset times given a location and date if that helps you. Something like…

$latitude  = 55.27; # -ve is south of Equator, +ve is north
$longitude = -22.35; # -ve is west of Grenwich meridian, +ve is east.
$sunset = date_sunset ( time(), SUNFUNCS_RET_TIMESTAMP, $latitude, $longitude);
echo date( 'H:i', $sunset );

…should display the sunset time for you. Just remember to supply your latitude and longitude and you should be all set.

Edited to add longitude & latitude to example code

Bloke · 2010-06-29 08:11:50

kevinpotts wrote:

I’ve tried all kinds of combos with your plugin, but mostly it’s just epic fail across the board. Can you help?

The current plugin is unfortunately a bit lame in the way it handles subfields and compound tags. The next version that I’m about, ummm what, 70% of the way through(ish) handles the feed you gave above natively with this tag:

<txp:smd_xml data="http://weather.yahooapis.com/forecastrss?w=2362700" record="channel" fields="yweather">
Sunrise: {yweather:astronomy|sunrise}
Sunset: {yweather:astronomy|sunset}
</txp:smd_xml>

Although the plugin isn’t finished, if you were desperate (i.e. net-carver’s PHP didn’t fit the bill) and didn’t use it for much more complicated stuff than the above, I could tidy it up a bit and let you have the dev version with no warranty implied :-)

Drop me a mail if you’d like a copy.

kevinpotts · 2010-06-29 15:13:42

net-carver — This code worked perfectly. However, because I am a PHP moron, how would you format the time? By default it’s “military” time (like 19:31 instead of 7:31 PM). I looked around php.net at this function, but I can’t seem to figure it out. Again, I am a moron.

Bloke — Your work on this plugin is amazing, and I’ve used it elsewhere, but if I can grab this data via native PHP without relying on the overhead of parsing RSS from Yahoo that’s derived from weather.com data, the world will be a lot easier. But thank you regardless — your next version looks awesome.

net-carver · 2010-06-29 15:34:31

Kevin

just change the last line to…

echo date( 'g:i A', $sunset );

The format codes are here.

Bloke · 2010-06-29 15:36:18

kevinpotts

No worries. The PHP version is far simpler anyway.

For the reformatting of dates, look at the date function. The last line of Steve’s code has "H:i" in it. That’s H=24-hour ‘hour’, then a colon, then the minutes with leading zeros. If you want to alter it, change the stuff in quotes to something like "g:iA" for 7:31AM.

EDIT: Steve be faster, Steve be quick…

Last edited by Bloke (2010-06-29 15:37:20)

net-carver · 2010-06-29 16:19:18

Kevin

if you want a lowercase am/pm then use…

echo date( 'g:i a', $sunset );

As Stef posted, you can also get rid of the space between the ‘i’ and ‘a’ if you need to.

kevinpotts · 2010-06-29 18:07:55

You guys are so awesome it hurts. I was messing with the time() function to see if I could use the same variables as date(), but, alas, I am not so smart. Seriously — thanks both. Makes me love being part of this community. Wordpress can go to hell.

kevinpotts · 2010-07-05 21:15:41

Not sure if you guys are looking for extra credit, but I am trying to take this concept to a new level via AJAX. Any help at all would be really, um, helpful.

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#49 2010-05-23 02:28:12

Re: smd_xml : extract data from XML feeds

#50 2010-05-23 08:05:18

Re: smd_xml : extract data from XML feeds

#51 2010-06-05 07:49:01

Re: smd_xml : extract data from XML feeds

#52 2010-06-29 03:12:52

Re: smd_xml : extract data from XML feeds

#53 2010-06-29 07:32:48

Re: smd_xml : extract data from XML feeds

#54 2010-06-29 08:11:50

Re: smd_xml : extract data from XML feeds

#55 2010-06-29 15:13:42

Re: smd_xml : extract data from XML feeds

#56 2010-06-29 15:34:31

Re: smd_xml : extract data from XML feeds

#57 2010-06-29 15:36:18

Re: smd_xml : extract data from XML feeds

#58 2010-06-29 16:19:18

Re: smd_xml : extract data from XML feeds

#59 2010-06-29 18:07:55

Re: smd_xml : extract data from XML feeds

#60 2010-07-05 21:15:41

Re: smd_xml : extract data from XML feeds

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