PODCASTPARSER(1)

NAME
podcastparser - podcastparser Documentation

podcastparser is a simple and fast podcast feed parser library in Python. The two primary users of the library are the gPodder Podcast Client <http://gpodder.org/> and the gpodder.net web service <http://gpodder.net/>.

The following feed types are supported:

•   Really Simple Syndication (RSS 2.0 <http://www.rssboard.org/rss-specification>)

•   Atom Syndication Format (RFC 4287 <https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc4287>)

    The following specifications are supported:

•   Paged Feeds <http://podlove.org/paged-feeds/> (RFC 5005 <https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc5005>)

•   Podlove Simple Chapters <http://podlove.org/simple-chapters/>

•   Podcast Index Podcast Namespace <https://github.com/Podcastindex-org/podcast-namespace/blob/main/docs/1.0.md>

    These formats only specify the possible markup elements and attributes. We recommend that you also read the Podcast Feed Best Practice <https://github.com/gpodder/podcast-feed-best-practice/blob/master/podcast-feed-best-practice.md> guide if you want to optimize your feeds for best display in podcast clients.

    Where times and durations are used, the values are expected to be formatted either as seconds or as RFC 2326 <https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc2326> Normal Play Time (NPT).

        import podcastparser
        import urllib.request
        feedurl = 'http://example.com/feed.xml'
        parsed = podcastparser.parse(feedurl, urllib.request.urlopen(feedurl))
        # parsed is a dict
        import pprint
        pprint.pprint(parsed)

    For both RSS and Atom feeds, only a subset of elements (those that are relevant to podcast client applications) is parsed. This section describes which elements and attributes are parsed and how the contents are interpreted/used.

RSS

rss@xml:base
    Base URL for all relative links in the RSS file.

rss/channel
    Podcast.

rss/channel/title
    Podcast title (whitespace is squashed).

rss/channel/link
    Podcast website.

rss/channel/description
    Podcast description (whitespace is squashed).

rss/channel/image/url
    Podcast cover art.

rss/channel/itunes:image
    Podcast cover art (alternative).

rss/channel/itunes:type
    Podcast type (whitespace is squashed). One of 'episodic' or 'serial'.

rss/channel/itunes:keywords
    Podcast keywords (whitespace is squashed).

rss/channel/atom:link@rel=payment
    Podcast payment URL (e.g. Flattr).

rss/channel/generator
    A string indicating the program used to generate the channel. (e.g. MightyInHouse Content System v2.3).

rss/channel/language
    Podcast language.

rss/channel/itunes:author
    The group responsible for creating the show.

rss/channel/itunes:owner
    The podcast owner contact information. The <itunes:owner> tag information is for administrative communication about the podcast and isn't displayed in Apple Podcasts

rss/channel/itunes:category
    The show category information.

rss/channel/itunes:explicit
    Indicates whether podcast contains explicit material.

rss/channel/itunes:new-feed-url
    The new podcast RSS Feed URL.

rss/channel/podcast:locked
    If the podcast is currently locked from being transferred.

rss/channel/podcast:funding
    Funding link for podcast.

rss/redirect/newLocation
    The new podcast RSS Feed URL.

rss/channel/item
    Episode.

rss/channel/item/guid
    Episode unique identifier (GUID), mandatory.

rss/channel/item/title
    Episode title (whitespace is squashed).

rss/channel/item/link
    Episode website.

rss/channel/item/description
    Episode description. If it contains html, it's returned as description_html. Otherwise it's returned as description (whitespace is squashed). See Mozilla's article Why RSS Content Module is Popular

rss/channel/item/itunes:summary
    Episode description (whitespace is squashed).

rss/channel/item/itunes:subtitle
    Episode subtitled / one-line description (whitespace is squashed).

rss/channel/item/content:encoded
    Episode description in HTML. Best source for description_html.

rss/channel/item/itunes:duration
    Episode duration.

rss/channel/item/pubDate
    Episode publication date.

rss/channel/item/atom:link@rel=payment
    Episode payment URL (e.g. Flattr).

rss/channel/item/atom:link@rel=enclosure
    File download URL (@href), size (@length) and mime type (@type).

rss/channel/item/itunes:image
    Episode art URL.

rss/channel/item/media:thumbnail
    Episode art URL.

rss/channel/item/media:group/media:thumbnail
    Episode art URL.

rss/channel/item/media:content
    File download URL (@url), size (@fileSize) and mime type (@type).

rss/channel/item/media:group/media:content
    File download URL (@url), size (@fileSize) and mime type (@type).

rss/channel/item/enclosure
    File download URL (@url), size (@length) and mime type (@type).

rss/channel/item/psc:chapters
    Podlove Simple Chapters, version 1.1 and 1.2.

rss/channel/item/psc:chapters/psc:chapter
    Chapter entry (@start, @title, @href and @image).

rss/channel/item/itunes:explicit
    Indicates whether episode contains explicit material.

rss/channel/item/itunes:author
    The group responsible for creating the episode.

rss/channel/item/itunes:season
    The season number of the episode.

rss/channel/item/itunes:episode
    An episode number.

rss/channel/item/itunes:episodeType
    The episode type. This flag is used if an episode is a trailer or bonus content.

rss/channel/item/podcast:chapters
    The url to a JSON file describing the chapters. Only the url is added to the data as fetching an external URL would be unsafe.

rss/channel/item/podcast:person
    A person involved in the episode, e.g. host, or guest.

rss/channel/item/podcast:transcript
    The url for the transcript file associated with this episode.

ATOM

For Atom feeds, podcastparser will handle the following elements and attributes:

atom:feed
    Podcast.

atom:feed/atom:title
    Podcast title (whitespace is squashed).

atom:feed/atom:subtitle
    Podcast description (whitespace is squashed).

atom:feed/atom:icon
    Podcast cover art.

atom:feed/atom:link@href
    Podcast website.

atom:feed/atom:entry
    Episode.

atom:feed/atom:entry/atom:id
    Episode unique identifier (GUID), mandatory.

atom:feed/atom:entry/atom:title
    Episode title (whitespace is squashed).

atom:feed/atom:entry/atom:link@rel=enclosure
    File download URL (@href), size (@length) and mime type (@type).

atom:feed/atom:entry/atom:link@rel=(self|alternate)
    Episode website.

atom:feed/atom:entry/atom:link@rel=payment
    Episode payment URL (e.g. Flattr).

atom:feed/atom:entry/atom:content
    Episode description (in HTML or plaintext).

atom:feed/atom:entry/atom:published
    Episode publication date.

atom:feed/atom:entry/media:thumbnail
    Episode art URL.

atom:feed/atom:entry/media:group/media:thumbnail
    Episode art URL.

atom:feed/atom:entry/psc:chapters
    Podlove Simple Chapters, version 1.1 and 1.2.

atom:feed/atom:entry/psc:chapters/psc:chapter
    Chapter entry (@start, @title, @href and @image).

    Simplified, fast RSS parser

exception podcastparser.FeedParseError(msg, exception, locator)
    Exception raised when asked to parse an invalid feed

    This exception allows users of this library to catch exceptions without having to import the XML parsing library themselves.

class podcastparser.PodcastHandler(url, max_episodes)

characters(chars)
    Receive notification of character data.

    The Parser will call this method to report each chunk of character data. SAX parsers may return all contiguous character data in a single chunk, or they may split it into several chunks; however, all of the characters in any single event must come from the same external entity so that the Locator provides useful information.

endElement(name)
    Signals the end of an element in non-namespace mode.

    The name parameter contains the name of the element type, just as with the startElement event.

startElement(name, attrs)
    Signals the start of an element in non-namespace mode.

    The name parameter contains the raw XML 1.0 name of the element type as a string and the attrs parameter holds an instance of the Attributes class containing the attributes of the element.

class podcastparser.RSSItemDescription
    RSS 2.0 almost encourages to put html content in item/description but content:encoded is the better source of html content and itunes:summary is known to contain the short textual description of the item. So use a heuristic to attribute text to either description or description_html, without overriding existing values.

podcastparser.file_basename_no_extension(filename)
    Returns filename without extension

        >>> file_basename_no_extension('/home/me/file.txt')
        'file'

        >>> file_basename_no_extension('file')
        'file'

podcastparser.is_html(text)
    Heuristically tell if text is HTML

    By looking for an open tag (more or less:) >>> is_html('<h1>HELLO</h1>') True >>> is_html('a < b < c') False

podcastparser.normalize_feed_url(url)
    Normalize and convert a URL. If the URL cannot be converted (invalid or unknown scheme), None is returned.

    This will also normalize <feed://> and itpc:// to http://.

        >>> normalize_feed_url('itpc://example.org/podcast.rss')
        'http://example.org/podcast.rss'

    If no URL scheme is defined (e.g. "curry.com"), we will simply assume the user intends to add a <http://> feed.

        >>> normalize_feed_url('curry.com')
        'http://curry.com/'

    It will also take care of converting the domain name to all-lowercase (because domains are not case sensitive):

        >>> normalize_feed_url('http://Example.COM/')
        'http://example.com/'

    Some other minimalistic changes are also taken care of, e.g. a ? with an empty query is removed:

        >>> normalize_feed_url('http://example.org/test?')
        'http://example.org/test'

    Leading and trailing whitespace is removed

        >>> normalize_feed_url(' http://example.com/podcast.rss ')
        'http://example.com/podcast.rss'

    Incomplete (too short) URLs are not accepted

        >>> normalize_feed_url('http://') is None
        True

    Unknown protocols are not accepted

        >>> normalize_feed_url('gopher://gopher.hprc.utoronto.ca/file.txt') is None
        True

podcastparser.parse(url, stream, max_episodes=0)
    Parse a podcast feed from the given URL and stream

Parameters

•   url -- the URL of the feed. Will be used to resolve relative links

•   stream -- file-like object containing the feed content

•   max_episodes -- maximum number of episodes to return. 0 (default) means no limit

Returns
    a dict with the parsed contents of the feed

podcastparser.parse_length(text)
    Parses a file length

        >>> parse_length(None)
        -1

        >>> parse_length('0')
        -1

        >>> parse_length('unknown')
        -1

        >>> parse_length('100')
        100

podcastparser.parse_pubdate(text)
    Parse a date string into a Unix timestamp

        >>> parse_pubdate('Fri, 21 Nov 1997 09:55:06 -0600')
        880127706

        >>> parse_pubdate('2003-12-13T00:00:00+02:00')
        1071266400

        >>> parse_pubdate('2003-12-13T18:30:02Z')
        1071340202

        >>> parse_pubdate('Mon, 02 May 1960 09:05:01 +0100')
        -305049299

        >>> parse_pubdate('')
        0

        >>> parse_pubdate('unknown')
        0

podcastparser.parse_time(value)
    Parse a time string into seconds

    See RFC2326, 3.6 "Normal Play Time" (HH:MM:SS.FRACT)

        >>> parse_time('0')
        0
        >>> parse_time('128')
        128
        >>> parse_time('00:00')
        0
        >>> parse_time('00:00:00')
        0
        >>> parse_time('00:20')
        20
        >>> parse_time('00:00:20')
        20
        >>> parse_time('01:00:00')
        3600
        >>> parse_time(' 03:02:01')
        10921
        >>> parse_time('61:08')
        3668
        >>> parse_time('25:03:30 ')
        90210
        >>> parse_time('25:3:30')
        90210
        >>> parse_time('61.08')
        61
        >>> parse_time('01:02:03.500')
        3723
        >>> parse_time(' ')
        0

podcastparser.parse_type(text)
    "normalize" a mime type

        >>> parse_type('text/plain')
        'text/plain'

        >>> parse_type('text')
        'application/octet-stream'

        >>> parse_type('')
        'application/octet-stream'

        >>> parse_type(None)
        'application/octet-stream'

podcastparser.remove_html_tags(html)
    Remove HTML tags from a string and replace numeric and named entities with the corresponding character, so the HTML text can be displayed in a simple text view.

podcastparser.squash_whitespace(text)
    Combine multiple whitespaces into one, trim trailing/leading spaces

        >>> squash_whitespace(' some           text  with a    lot of   spaces ')
        'some text with a lot of spaces'

podcastparser.squash_whitespace_not_nl(text)
    Like squash_whitespace, but don't squash linefeeds and carriage returns

        >>> squash_whitespace_not_nl(' linefeeds\ncarriage\r  returns')
        'linefeeds\ncarriage\r returns'

    This is a list of podcast-related XML namespaces that are not yet supported by podcastparser, but might be in the future.

CHAPTER MARKS

•   rawvoice RSS <http://www.rawvoice.com/rawvoiceRssModule/>: Rating, Frequency, Poster, WebM, MP4, Metamark (kind of chapter-like markers)

•   IGOR <http://emonk.net/IGOR>: Chapter Marks

OTHERS

•   libSYN RSS Extensions <http://libsyn.com/rss-extension>: contactPhone, contactEmail, contactTwitter, contactWebsite, wallpaper, pdf, background

•   Comment API <http://www.wellformedweb.org/CommentAPI/>: Comments to a given item (readable via RSS)

•   MVCB <http://webns.net/mvcb/>: Error Reports To Field (usually a mailto: link)

•   Syndication Module <http://web.resource.org/rss/1.0/modules/syndication/>: Update period, frequency and base (for skipping updates)

•   Creative Commons RSS <http://backend.userland.com/creativeCommonsRssModule>: Creative commons license for the content

•   Pheedo <http://www.pheedo.com/namespace/pheedo>: Original link to website and original link to enclosure (without going through pheedo redirect)

•   WGS84 <http://www.w3.org/2003/01/geo/wgs84_pos#>: Geo-Coordinates per item

•   Conversations Network <http://conversationsnetwork.org/rssNamespace-1.0/>: Intro duration in milliseconds (for skipping the intro), ratings

•   purl DC Elements <http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/>: dc:creator (author / creator of the podcast, possibly with e-mail address)

•   Tristana <http://www.tristana.org>: tristana:self (canonical URL to feed)

•   Blip <http://blip.tv/dtd/blip/1.0>: Show name, show page, picture, username, language, rating, thumbnail_src, license

•   Index <>

•   Module Index <>

•   Search Page <>

Author
gPodder Team

Copyright
2013, gPodder Team