Question

I’m looking to update a MySQL database with items from an RSS Feed. When the RSS Feed gains a new item, it is automatically fed into the MySQL database.

I have a php page that connects to the database and inserts data into, and i also have a PHP RSS parser, but I’m not certain on how to connect them so that when there is a new item in the RSS Feed, it runs the PHP script and inserts that item into the database.

Answer 1

The best way is to schedule a cron job that runs a PHP script to check if a new RSS feed exists. You can set a time interval to run this script (1 hour, 1 day, etc).

If it finds new data, you run it through your parser, and pass the data to your database. Here is some psuedo code:

// Get RSS data new today
$rssFeed = getNewRssFeeds('today');

if($rssfeed)
{
   // Parse feed into an array of data
   $dataArray = $myRssParser->parse($newRSS);

   // Insert into DB
   $myDbHandler->insert($dataArray);
}

None of those functions are real, you would have to code them. But that is generally how it could work.