how to create/update an RSS feed from a MySQL database?

marcnyc

Hello I have a website with articles and reviews. These reviews are in a MySQL database and there is a script that pulls them from the db and shows them on my pages.
I would like to create an RSS feed of this same content so I can syndicate it.
I've never done anything with RSS so I read up on it. I understand the structure, what I am confused about is: how do I create an RSS feed that is automatically updated with the content from by database?
Do I need to create a PHP script with fopen() that physically creates a file with the content from the database and everytime replaces the old file?
Or is there a way to add PHP functions INSIDE an RSS feed so that when somebody calls up the RSS in their reader it actually pulls the content from the database right there and then?
Or is there another way/scenario I don't know of or haven't thought of?
Sorry if the question seems stupid... I am confused...
Thanks

dagon

just like a web page you grab the data from the db when its requested, just instead of formatting it in html\css you format it for rss

dagon

heres mine, years old, but it may give you a start

<?PHP
header("Content-Type: text/xml");
$page_content ='<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" ?>
<rss xmlns:dc="http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/" version="2.0">
<channel>
<title>The Eldritch Dark Recent Additions</title>
<description>The Last 10 additions to The Eldritch Dark</description>
<link>http://www.eldritchdark.com</link>';
include('sql_additions.php');
$result=sql_additions(30,10);
while ($row = mysql_fetch_assoc($result)) {
		$page_content .='<item><title>'.htmlspecialchars($row['title']).'</title><dc:creator>'.$row['Fname'].'</dc:creator><description>';
		$page_content .= htmlspecialchars(strip_tags($row['body_sub']));
		$page_content .='</description><link>http://www.eldritchdark.com/'.$row['url'].'/'.$row['id'].'</link>';
		$page_content .='<guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.eldritchdark.com/'.$row['url'].'/'.$row['id'].'</guid>';
   		$page_content .='<pubDate>'.date("r",strtotime($row['date_added'])).'</pubDate></item>';
}

$page_content.='</channel></rss>';

echo $page_content;

exit;
?>