RSS parser; which is the best?

TheBeginner

Have been looking at different RSS parsers and really don't see the differencies of the two most poplular ones on the net I guess.

MagpieRSS (XML-based)
lastRSS (uses regullar expressions )

are those two that are great.

Do you have any expirience and thoughts about those two. Which is more effective for larger data and in that case better?

Regullar expressions or XML based parser?

justsomeone

I've used magpie a little and find it fine. Very easy to get up and running, and very easy to get at the data in the rss feed. Everything I wanted from an RSS parser.

I should say, though, that I am a light RSS user - it's not a core area of the project I've bundled it into, it just reads one RSS feed and that feed isn'tvery big. I don't know how well it scales up into bigger requirements.

TheBeginner

I understand, but I would really like to know which is better for server/mysql? Which method is more effective?

justsomeone

I don't understand... what part does mysql play? You have a remote site serving rss content, you have a library (such as magpie) which you can use to extract information from it. There's no mysql involvement in this.

If you subsequently decide to store information in mysql after you have extracted it from the rss feed, then it's up to you to do that eficiently.

There may well be a difference in how quickly/efficiently different RSS libraries parse RSS feeds. I haven't enough expereince of any of them to comment on that. Since no one else has replied on this topic, maybe you could find out and report back to the board so that we all benefit from your experience?

You could create one script based on magpie, another based on lastRSS, point them both to the same RSS source and see which one performs best. To make this test fair, you'll need to come up with a representative sample of, say, 100(?) RSS feeds.