Question

I have an RSS feed URL, that I can view in any Feed Reader.
This RSS feed is not controlled by me, it is only consumed by me.

This RSS Feed (Office of Inspector General’s Excluded Provider List) links to a page with download-able files.

These files are updated approximately once a month, and the RSS feed displays new “unread” items.

What I want to do is write something (in C#) that checks this RSS Feed once a week, and when a new item (i.e. a new download-able file) is available, triggers off an executable.

This is essentially like a very scaled-down RSS Reader, with the sole purpose of triggering an executable when a new item appears.

Any guidance, advice would be greatly appreciated.

Edit:

• I need help in determining when a new
  item becomes available for
  download.
• The running of an
  executable I can do.
• The
  executable that will run, will process
  the downloaded file.

Answer 1

As a commenter already noted, this question is quite broad, but here’s an attempt to answer:

• You can either write a Windows Service (use a template that comes with VS/MonoDevelop) or you can write a simple console app that would be called by Windows Scheduler or Cron.

• The main code will use one of the many RSS feed parsers available:

There are plenty of examples here on SO. IMO, the simplest LINQ-based is here

I personally like this approach, also using LINQ.

• Once you parse the feed, you need to look for the value of the Link element, found by doing this from the SO example above:

….

var feeds = from feed in feedXML.Descendants("item")
              select new
              {
                Title = feed.Element("title").Value,
                **Link** = feed.Element("link").Value,
                Description = feed.Element("description").Value
              };

….

• So, now that you have the executable, you’ll need to download it to your machine. I suggest you look into this example from MSDN:
• Now, that you have the file downloaded, simple use Process.Start("Path to EXE"); to execute it.

Watch out for viruses in the exes!!!