# Rss parsing error

**URL:** <https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/rss-parsing-error/172030>\
**Category:** Ruby\
**Created:** [July 13, 2009, 4:54pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/rss-parsing-error/172030 "2009-07-13T16:54:34Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 5\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Young\_Gyu\_P](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/y/7ea924/32.png) [@Young\_Gyu\_P](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/Young_Gyu_P)\
**Post date:** [July 13, 2009, 4:54pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/rss-parsing-error/172030/1 "2009-07-13T16:54:34Z")

</div>

At these days, I try to parse ‘[http://www.forbes.com/news/index.xml](http://www.forbes.com/news/index.xml)’  
using  
feedzirra.  
As you access this url, you can recognize what the problem is.

They added an unnecessary html tag which made malformed rss format.

But in the google rss reader, they process correctly without any  
problem.  
This is the point I wonder how they can make it happen, while I can’t.

please help me out to narrow the gap between me and google ^.^

be a happy day.

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Young\_Gyu\_P](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/y/7ea924/32.png) [@Young\_Gyu\_P](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/Young_Gyu_P)\
**Post date:** [July 14, 2009, 1:50pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/rss-parsing-error/172030/2 "2009-07-14T13:50:56Z")

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Hi,

In [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid)  
“Re: rss parsing error.” on Tue, 14 Jul 2009 00:26:37 +0900,  
Juvenn W. [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid) wrote:

> Hi, Young:  
> I think you may checkout universal feed parser at [feedparser.org](http://feedparser.org),  
> which is a python package, mainly created by Mark Pilgrim. And, I’m  
> guessing Google Reader uses it in the backend.  
> As far as I know, there’s no equivalent ruby package for that.

The RSS can be parsed with the bundled RSS Parser.  
We doesn’t need to use Universal Feed Parser.

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Young\_Gyu\_P](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/y/7ea924/32.png) [@Young\_Gyu\_P](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/Young_Gyu_P)\
**Post date:** [July 13, 2009, 5:27pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/rss-parsing-error/172030/3 "2009-07-13T17:27:18Z")

</div>

Hi, Young:  
I think you may checkout universal feed parser at [feedparser.org](http://feedparser.org),  
which is a python package, mainly created by Mark Pilgrim. And, I’m  
guessing Google Reader uses it in the backend.  
As far as I know, there’s no equivalent ruby package for that.

Regards,

On 7/13/09, Young Gyu P. [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid) wrote:

> be a happy day.

–  
Sent from my mobile device

Juvenn W.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Young\_Gyu\_P](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/y/7ea924/32.png) [@Young\_Gyu\_P](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/Young_Gyu_P)\
**Post date:** [September 7, 2009, 6:40am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/rss-parsing-error/172030/4 "2009-09-07T06:40:56Z")

</div>

Has anybody tried comparing Feedzirra vs Universal Feed Parsers  
performance? Which is faster when processing thousands of feeds?

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Young\_Gyu\_P](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/y/7ea924/32.png) [@Young\_Gyu\_P](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/Young_Gyu_P)\
**Post date:** [September 7, 2009, 8:05pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/rss-parsing-error/172030/5 "2009-09-07T20:05:31Z")

</div>

Young Gyu P. wrote:

> At these days, I try to parse ‘[http://www.forbes.com/news/index.xml](http://www.forbes.com/news/index.xml)’  
> using  
> feedzirra.  
> As you access this url, you can recognize what the problem is.
> 
> They added an unnecessary html tag which made malformed rss format.

Glancing at the output of their feed I see no malformed RSS. I do see  
them “exercising some options” that most feeds don’t, such as embedding  
CDATA in the link tags.

Using Nokogiri to parse this feed is easy:

```
#!/usr/bin/env ruby -wKU

require 'rubygems'
require 'nokogiri'
require 'open-uri'

url = 'http://www.forbes.com/news/index.xml'
xml = Nokogiri::XML(open(url))

puts "Feed title: #{ (xml%'title').content }"
puts "Feed description: #{ (xml%'description').content }"
puts "Feed link: #{ (xml%'link').content }"

# get the first item
item = (xml/'item').first
puts "Item title: #{ (item%'title').content }"
puts "Item link: #{ (item%'link').content }"
puts "Item pubDate: #{ (item%'pubDate').content }"
puts "Item description: #{ (item%'description').content }"
puts "Item author: #{ (item%'author').content }"

```

Not all feeds are this straightforward or well constructed. That’s where  
using a pre-built library to parse comes in handy but I haven’t found  
one yet that handles everything out there correctly. Even Google’s  
reader gets it wrong on some malformed feeds.

Aaron P. (AKA tenderlove) has done a great job with Nokogiri.  
I’ve tested a lot of feeds and seen occasions where the built-in RSS  
reader and other libraries puked or spun off and never returned. I’ve  
run into feeds that caused Hpricot to be unable to strip broken HTML  
embedded inside the descriptions, but Nokogiri was able to handle it.  
So, if you can’t get a library to do what you want, jump in with  
Nokogiri and give it a try.