Question

At the moment, I am generating xml and json data using the following code:

public class App
{
    public string app_name;
    public string app_path;

    public App(string m_app_name, string m_app_path)
    {
        app_name = m_app_name;
        app_path = m_app_path;
    }

    public App() { }
}

[ScriptService]
public class Apps : WebService {
    List<App> App = new List<App>();

    SqlConnection connection;
    SqlCommand command;
    SqlDataReader reader;

    [WebMethod()]
    public List<App> GetUserApps()
    {
        var apps = new List<App>();

        using (connection = new SqlConnection(ConfigurationManager.AppSettings["connString"]))
        {


                using (command = new SqlCommand(@"some query here", connection))
                {
                    connection.Open();
                    using (reader = command.ExecuteReader())
                    {
                        int AppNameIndex = reader.GetOrdinal("application_name");
                        int AppPathIndex = reader.GetOrdinal("application_path");

                        while (reader.Read())
                        {
                            apps.Add(new App(reader.GetString(AppNameIndex), reader.GetString(AppPathIndex)));
                        }
                    }
                }



        }

        return apps;
    }
}

If I then request this in javascript using application/json; charset=utf-8, I automatically get json data.

My problem is that I need to get data from an external RSS feed, instead of a local database, and convert that to json data so I can call it the same way using javascript.

Anyone know how I can capture the RSS feed http://www.hotukdeals.com/rss/hot using similar code as above?

Answer 1

Add a refrence to System.ServiceModel.Web and use the following code:

    [WebMethod()]     
    public List<Deal> GetDeals()
    {
        var deals = new List<Deal>();

        XmlReader xr = XmlReader.Create("http://www.hotukdeals.com/rss/hot");
        SyndicationFeed feed = SyndicationFeed.Load(xr);

        foreach (var item in feed.Items)
        {
            deals.Add(new Deal { Title = item.Title.Text, Summary = item.Summary.Text });
        }

        return deals;
    }

Replace the Deal class above with whatever class you need for your app and add some error handling as well 🙂

Check the SyndicationFeed documentation for details.

---

To read a dc:date property, add

using System.Xml.Linq;

and then add this in the foreach loop ( converts the first date )

        var dates = item.ElementExtensions.Where(x => x.OuterName == "date");

        if(dates.Count() > 0) 
        {
            var element = dates.First().GetObject<XElement>();
            var d = DateTime.Parse(element.Value);
        }

I found it in this article: Reading non-standard elements in a SyndicationItem with SyndicationFeed