# FeedTools syntax question

**URL:** <https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/feedtools-syntax-question/56672>\
**Category:** Rails\
**Created:** [April 2, 2006, 4:38pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/feedtools-syntax-question/56672 "2006-04-02T16:38:53Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 4\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![orotone](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/o/90db22/32.png) [@orotone](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/orotone)\
**Post date:** [April 2, 2006, 4:38pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/feedtools-syntax-question/56672/1 "2006-04-02T16:38:53Z")

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> **[Affordable Life Insurance quotes, Compare Term Insurance Plans](https://mozdex.com/)**
>
> Get free affordable life insurance quotes online and see how an affordable term life insurance policy protects you and your loved ones.

in the above feed, can anyone tell me how to access the  
openSearch:totalResults element using feed tools? I can access the other  
elements, but I’m unsure what special meaning the colon carries or how  
to  
work with such items in feedtools

thanks in advance  
al

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![orotone](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/o/90db22/32.png) [@orotone](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/orotone)\
**Post date:** [April 2, 2006, 4:48pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/feedtools-syntax-question/56672/2 "2006-04-02T16:48:16Z")

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“Alan B.” [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid) wrote

> [Affordable Life Insurance quotes, Compare Term Insurance Plans](http://www.mozdex.com/open.jsp?query=webhosting&start=10)

whilst I’m on the topic of feedtools, has anyone been able to use it  
with  
the google web results from opensearch? I can’t find the URL for the rss  
feed for it…

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![orotone](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/o/90db22/32.png) [@orotone](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/orotone)\
**Post date:** [April 2, 2006, 8:18pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/feedtools-syntax-question/56672/3 "2006-04-02T20:18:35Z")

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The colon in an xml tag signifies a namespace. “openSearch” would be the  
namespace prefix  
and all tags in the document with that prefix are in that namespace.

If you look at the root element it declares the namespace:

xmlns:openSearch=“[http://a9.com/-/spec/opensearchrss/1.0/](http://a9.com/-/spec/opensearchrss/1.0/)”

Note that the URL there is just being used as a URI… a unique  
identifier for the  
namespace. Giving it the prefix allows you to use the prefix in the tags  
instead of having  
to stick that whole URI in every tag in the namespace.

I don’t know anything about feedtools, but hopefully it has some  
facility for dealing with  
namespaces… Any decent XML library should.

b

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![orotone](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/o/90db22/32.png) [@orotone](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/orotone)\
**Post date:** [April 4, 2006, 12:36pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/feedtools-syntax-question/56672/4 "2006-04-04T12:36:42Z")

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> [Affordable Life Insurance quotes, Compare Term Insurance Plans](http://www.mozdex.com/open.jsp?query=webhosting&start=10)
> 
> in the above feed, can anyone tell me how to access the  
> openSearch:totalResults element using feed tools? I can access the other  
> elements, but I’m unsure what special meaning the colon carries or how  
> to work with such items in feedtools  
> feed =  
> FeedTools::Feed.open(‘[Affordable Life Insurance quotes, Compare Term Insurance Plans](http://www.mozdex.com/open.jsp?query=webhosting&start=10)’)  
> puts feed.find\_node(‘openSearch:totalResults’).text

‘feed’ can be used as a simple REXML object