On Thu, Oct 8, 2009 at 6:44 PM, elij <elij...@gmail.com> wrote: > On Thu, Oct 8, 2009 at 4:35 PM, Loui Chang <louipc....@gmail.com> wrote: >> On Thu 08 Oct 2009 18:03 -0500, Aaron Griffin wrote: >>> On Thu, Oct 8, 2009 at 6:02 PM, elij <elij...@gmail.com> wrote: >>> > On Thu, Oct 8, 2009 at 3:36 PM, Aaron Griffin <aaronmgrif...@gmail.com> >>> > wrote: >>> >> Flickr actually has two APIs - a feed based one and a REST based >>> >> "ajax" API. Both accept a format=foo parameter and json is allowed for >>> >> both sets. >>> >> >>> >> * Is the AUR's rss feed generated per request? Or is it a static output >>> >> file? >>> >> * If it's generated, why not simply use the same "format=" thing here. >>> >> >>> >> Note that Flickr finds it totally acceptable and ideal to use feeds in >>> >> addition to their API >>> > >>> > As I recall, the feed is generated, then saved to a static file. This >>> > static file is then served up php script reads it to stdout if not >>> > expired, until such time as it expires. Then it is generated again. >>> > >>> > It appears to work that way as an artifact of the php class/import >>> > that is being used. There appears to be no option (without adding it >>> > yourself) to either use an alternate cache mechanism (memcached) or to >>> > return the feed in alternate formats (other than rss2.0). >>> > >>> > This is _mostly_ painting the shed though (or format war, tabs vs >>> > spaces, etc). Yet, for some reason this just doesn't 'smell' right to >>> > me though. I can be a bit conservative at times though. >>> > >>> > It just seems to me that, getting a list of the latest updates is .. >>> > wait for ... what feeds are for. >>> >>> Yes, exactly... but a "feed" doesn't always have to be RSS :) >> >> We could change the API to XML and then use RSS. >> But I'm not sure that we could represent all the data we'd like to when >> it comes to the RSS. Maybe we could add a custom XML namespace into the >> RSS feed. We'd need to declare one anyways for the API and to validate >> everything. I don't know. I'm a big noob when it comes to these things. >> ... > > Change the api to xml? > Namespaces? > wtf are you talking about? > > We have RSS in xml format. And we are talking about adding a json > output format representing the same data. > rss.php?fmt=json (json format) > rss.php?fmt=rss2 (rss2.0 format) > rss.php (default would be rss2.0)
Bikeshedding, but if the format isn't always RSS, it shouldn't be called rss.php - perhaps feed.php