Using Google App Engine to display a Rss/Atom feed

Question

Im thinking of setting up a Google App that simply displays an RSS or Atom feed. The idea is that every once in a while (a cron job or at the push of a magic button) the feed is read and copied into the apps internal data, ready to be viewed. This would be done in Python.

I found this page that seems to explain what I want to do. But that is assuming Im using some of the other Google products as it relies on the Google API.

My idea was more in line that added some new content, hosted it locally on my machine, went to the Google App administration panel, pushed a button and my (locally hosted) feed was read and copied.

My questions now are:

• Is the RSS (or Atom, one is enough) format specified enough to handle add/edit/delete?
• Are there any flavors or such I should worry about?
• Have this been done before? Would save me some work.

Answer 1

What about using an additional library, like for instance Feedparser?

Answer 2

One option is to use the universal feed parser library, which will take care of most of these issues for you. Another option would be to use a PubSubHubbub-powered service such as Superfeedr, which will POST updates to you in a pre-sanitized form, eliminating most of your polling and parsing issues.