Developing an RSS Feed Reader in C++

Question

Hi,

I wanna write a simple RSS Feed reader in C++. I understand that the basic requirement is to understand XML parsing ( at the low level), opening, reading/writing, closing sockets and stuff like that. I don't need help in coding for sure. But It would be great if someone can help in getting started with RSS Protocol. E.g.. How exactly do I open socket ( for http I used 80, for IRC I had used the 6667 and so on).. and the protocol or commands to interact with a RSS Feed socket. I've also contemplated using third party libraries for XML n stuff. But I wanna do everything from scratch. Any help would be appreciated! and also, if not in the right direction.. please guide !

Thanks and Regards, Vamsi Krishna

Answer 1

To get started, just go to [http://stackoverflow.com/feeds/tag/c++], which is an RSS feed for StackOverflow C++ question. As you can see it's an ordinary HTTP connection. View source.

Answer 2

If you want to "do everything from scratch" as a learning exercise then go for it. However, if your goal is a to write an app to solve a problem then I'd suggest using off-the-shelf librarys as much as possible.

Assuming you're after the learning experience...

• Make a socket connection to port 80 on the server hosting the RSS feed
• Send an HTTP request for the feed
• Receive the feed
• Parse the feed

And I guess you want to write your own XML parser?