The optional <guid> subelement of <item> causes some confusion because of its name, which is taken from GUID (Globally Unique Identifier), aka UUID -- as defined by the OSF, a 16 byte integer. See:
http://www.opengroup.org/onlinepubs/9629399/apdxa.htm for the gory details. The idea behind this element is to give each <item> a unique string so the reader can flag the item has having been "seen" or visited by the user. The problem with URLs is thy can be reused -- thus making their uniqueness highly suspect. In the context of most blog software, this can generally be avoided through the use of a "permalink" feature. Any blog software that reuses the same URL for a post (even if it has the same title), is pretty poorly designed blog software. Hence, setting the optional isPermalink attribute to true tells the reader that the value of the <guid> element is indeed a unique URL and can also be used as a identifier. Doug > Message: 2 > Date: Wed, 09 Nov 2005 18:13:41 -0800 > From: "Jeff Barr" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > Subject: Feature: Better support for RSS 2.0 <guid> tags > > I learned something interesting yesterday. In RSS 2.0, the <guid> > element > is allowed to essentially stand in for the <link> element, as long as > the > isPermaLink attribute is set to true. > > This affected a few feeds, so I have improved Syndic8's RSS parser so > that > it now handles this properly. The changes will be visible after the > current > poll finishes its work sometime late tonight. > > Feed 427020 (a featured feed) exhibited this behavior. The feed owner > emailed > me to ask why his links didn't show up, I did some investigation, and he > was right, so I fixed the code. > > Jeff; > > > ________________________________________________________________________ > ________________________________________________________________________ > > > If you're getting "too much mail" then send a message to: > [EMAIL PROTECTED] > (this will tell it to stop sending you mail) > > To change your membership use THIS WEB PAGE: > http://finance.groups.yahoo.com/group/syndic8/join > (here you can set your mail to digest, no mail or LEAVE the list) > > To find more info about Syndicated XML newsfeeds visit http://www.syndic8.com/ > ------------------------------------------------------------------------ > Yahoo! Groups Links > > > > > ------------------------------------------------------------------------ > > > > -- Douglas Clifton [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://loadaveragezero.com/ http://loadaveragezero.com/app/s9y/ http://loadaveragezero.com/drx/rss/recent ------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor --------------------~--> Get fast access to your favorite Yahoo! Groups. Make Yahoo! your home page http://us.click.yahoo.com/dpRU5A/wUILAA/yQLSAA/IRislB/TM --------------------------------------------------------------------~-> If you're getting "too much mail" then send a message to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (this will tell it to stop sending you mail) To change your membership use THIS WEB PAGE: http://finance.groups.yahoo.com/group/syndic8/join (here you can set your mail to digest, no mail or LEAVE the list) To find more info about Syndicated XML newsfeeds visit http://www.syndic8.com/ Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/syndic8/ <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
