Fetch RSS Feed Content From LINQ To XML

Article

In this article I will demonstrate how to build RSS Feed Reader using LINQ to XML.

Step 1

You need to grab the feed Link. In my case i will be using C# Corner Feed Link. The following image helps to find the desired link from C# Corner Main Page.

You can get Link from above yellow highlighted regions. I am pasting the links for reference.

Step 2

Now after opening Visual Studio you can creating a new website by going to File, New, then Website or by pressing Shift+Alt+N command in Visual Studio.

Step 3: Create ASP.NET Empty Web Site and then add new web form to the page.

Step 4: Add Controls to the page. In our case we required a TextBox and Button.

Here is the code for building the Rss Reader.

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">
<head runat="server">
<title></title>
</head>
<body>
<form id="form1" runat="server">
<div>
RSS Feed:
<asp:TextBox ID="txtrss" runat="server" TextMode="Url" Width="500px" placeholder="Enter RSS URL"></asp:TextBox>
<asp:Button ID="btngetrss" runat="server" Text="Get RSS Feed" OnClick="btngetrss_Click" />
</div>
</form>
</body>
</html>

Step 5: Add new class and public properties inside it.

using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Linq;
using System.Text;
public class RssNews
{
public string tit
{
get;
set;
}
public string desc
{
get;
set;
}
public string auth
{
get;
set;
}
public string contentlink
{
get;
set;
}
public string date
{
get;
set;
}
}

Step 6: Add required Namespaces

using System.Xml;
using System.Xml.Linq;

Step 7: Now we can write code behind logic in button.

protected void btngetrss_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
var posts = GetFeeds(txtrss.Text);
StringBuilder sb = new StringBuilder();
sb.Append("C# Corner Latest Content Fetch From RSS by Aqib Shehzad");
foreach (var item in posts)
{
sb.Append("Title: " + item.tit);
sb.Append(" ");
sb.Append("Description: " + item.desc);
sb.Append(" ");
sb.Append("Article Link: <a target='_blank' href='" + item.contentlink + "'>" +item.contentlink+"</a>");
sb.Append(" ");
sb.Append("Published Date: " + item.date);
sb.Append(" ");
sb.Append("Author: " + item.auth);
sb.Append(" ");
sb.Append("------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------");
sb.Append(" ");
}
HttpContext.Current.Response.Write(sb);
}

The Feed Reader method from URL.

public static IEnumerable<RssNews> GetFeeds(string url)
{
XDocument rssfeedxml;
XNamespace namespaceName = "http://www.w3.org/2005/Atom";
rssfeedxml = XDocument.Load(url);
StringBuilder rssContent = new StringBuilder();
var list = (from descendant in rssfeedxml.Descendants("item")
//Response.Write(list);
select new RssNews
{
tit = descendant.Element("title").Value,
desc = descendant.Element("description").Value,
contentlink = descendant.Element("link").Value,
date = descendant.Element("pubDate").Value,
auth = descendant.Element("author").Value
});
return list.ToList();
}

Now after Initializes a new instance of the XDocument class. we can declare the namespace of Rss Feed.

XNamespace namespaceName = "http://www.w3.org/2005/Atom";

Now we can load the URI contents to create the new Xdocument.

XDocument.Load(url);

after fetching data we can get the descendant element for which we want data.

var list = (from descendant in rssfeedxml.Descendants("item")

and after manipulation we return the data as list and do processing per need.

Step 8:

Final Output

Hope you find this useful.

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