RSS Feeds

Arrivalguides.com RSS Feeds

This document aims to briefly explain arrivalguides.com destination RSS Feeds and provide information and guidelines on how to use them.

Available destinations and languages
To check what destinations and languages that are available you can use a web service we created that will display all guides in our system and what languages a particular destination has. This web service is offered in XML format http://star.arrivalguides.com/dynamic/Rss/DestinationRss.aspx?lang=en

General RSS information
The data is offered in XML, RSS 2.0 format and can easily be parsed and outputted as HTML into a webpage. Ever time the page loads, the parser will read the XML data, parse it and present it to the user. The parser script needs to be configured to load all elements of the feed and dynamically output them in a specific layout. This layout is of course determined by the partner. Below is a description of our feeds, a manual and some other useful information and links. Attached is a list of available destination and languages and a simple example of how the parsed data could look.

RSS Manual
Rss Stream: http://star.arrivalguides.com/dynamic/Rss/Rss.aspx

Call this stream with a destination and language using the variables dest and lang to get XML data for desired guide.

Example, London in English: http://star.arrivalguides.com/dynamic/Rss/Rss.aspx?dest=london&lang=en

This will return data for the entire selected destination in the selected language. For a list of available destinations and languages please se attached file guides.xls.

Since our guides are made up of different sections you also have the ability to pass a variable of (a) specific sections(s) to show only some part(s) of the guide information. The sections available are:

thecity                                  - Information about the city
doandsee                           - Things to do and see
eating                                  - Restaurants and food
event                                    - Event highlights
cafes                                    - Cafes
barsandnightlife                - Bars, pubs and nightlife
sleeping                              - Hotels and accommodation
shopping                             - Stores and shopping streets
essentialinformation         - Essential information, busses, subway, airports and such

To display data for one or more sections use the variable part

Example, Paris in French with the section shopping : http://star.arrivalguides.com/dynamic/Rss/Rss.aspx?dest=paris&lang=fr&part=shopping

Example, Madrid in German with the sections cafes and eating: http://star.arrivalguides.com/dynamic/Rss/Rss.aspx?dest=madrid&langÞ&part=shopping;eating (separate parts with a semi colon ; )

Feed layout
The feed follows the RSS 2.0 specification with one addition, the <partImage> element. We will go trough available elements

<item>                         - A guide item, for example a restaurant or a store.
<title>                          - The name of the item.
<description>            - The description/text for the item.
<partImage>              - The image for the current section. There is only one image per section.
<link>                           - The link that points to the PDF guide.
<pubDate>                  - The date that the current guide was last updated
<copyright>                 - Copyright information

Feed limitation and usage requirements
The feed will only show the first 100 characters of the items displayed (with the exception of the first paragraph) and should be outputted with a link back to the PDF guide. It is of course up to the partner to determine how to use the feeds, which elements to use and how to publish them. However, we require least one link per section back to the guide. One commonly used solution is to put a “read more>>” link after each item or after the entire section.

Parsing XML RSS feeds is a fairly simple task. In DOT.NET there are several simple tools to help with this. There are also lots of free tools, tips, help and source code available on the internet. Here are some resources. I’m sure you can find much more valuable information and documentation.

RSS Parsers
http://www.rssgov.com/rssparsers.html - List of RSS parsers for different platforms
http://magpierss.sourceforge.net/ - Free, Open Source PHP RSS Parser
http://www.codebeach.com/tutorials/displaying-rss-feeds-using-asp.asp - Info on parsing RSS in asp

Rss specifications
http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/rss/rss.html - RSS 2.0 specs at Harward
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RSS_(file_format) – Wikipedia on RSS

If you have any questions or special requirements, or if you find errors, please contact us