XML, RSS: read & create
What is XML?
XML stands for “Extensible Markup Language“, a textbased markup language. Designed to structure machine-readable data in a Text-File.
JCI and XML: No Problem!
As the Plugin is called “JSON Content Importer” you might think it can handle only the JSON-Format. But JCI can do more!
It can read XML, converts it into JSON and work with it.
Read XML and convert it to JSON
Just add inputtype=XML
to the Shortcode:
[jsoncontentimporterpro nameofthetemplate=... inputtype=XML]
Create XML out of JSON
Create a JCI-Template and put XML-text like the following into the twig-Template Text:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="windows-1252"?> <rss version="2.0"> <channel> <title>titleexample: {{title}}</title> <description>descriptionexample</description> <link>http://...link</link> <copyright>Copyright 20...</copyright> <docs>http://....docs</docs> <language>en-us</language> <lastBuildDate>Tue, 21 Oct 2019 03:19:24 -0800</lastBuildDate> <managingEditor>info@.....com</managingEditor> <pubDate>Tue, 21 Oct 2019 12:18:22 -0300</pubDate> <webMaster>webmaster@....com</webMaster> <generator>JCI</generator> <image> <url>http://www.....gif</url> <title>titleimage</title> <link>http://www....imagelink.htm</link> <description>descriptionimage</description> <width>480</width> <height>480</height> </image> <item> <title>titleitem</title> <description>descriptionitem</description> <link>http://www.linkitem</link> <comments>commentsitems</comments> <pubDate>Tue, 21 Oct 2019 07:38:46 -0800</pubDate> </item> </channel> </rss>
Also add a URL and if needed some more info to get the JSON. When the Shortcode is used, the XML-text is evaluated by twig and code like {{title}}
(see XML) is replaced by the JSON-data.
If the previous gave you XML you now can edit the template and insert more twig-code to insert JSON-data. In the end you get a XML-feed out of JSON.
RSS: Special XML
The above XML is a special XML-style called RSS. This is used at Newsreaders or Sliders.
Notice: RSS is sensitive to special chars and chars used for RSS itself.
Therefore you must add some “wrapping-code” with “CDATA” to tell RSS that data is enclosed here and not XML-syntax.
<![CDATA[ text.... ]]>
By using “?show=oc” you can remove the WordPress-Template to get pure XML. Read more on that here.