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1.x-1.1.5 (962.9 KB) Nov 22nd, 2023 Notes

An import and aggregation framework for Backdrop. Import or aggregate data as nodes, users, taxonomy terms or simple database records.

Features

  • Pluggable import configurations consisting of fetchers (get data) parsers (read and transform data) and processors (create content on Backdrop).
    • HTTP upload (with optional PubSubHubbub support).
    • File upload.
    • CSV, RSS, Atom parsing.
    • Creates nodes or terms.
    • Creates lightweight database records if Data module is installed. http://drupal.org/project/data
    • Additional fetchers/parsers or processors can be added by an object-oriented plugin system.
    • Granular mapping of parsed data to content elements.
  • Import configurations can be piggybacked on nodes (thus using nodes to track subscriptions to feeds) or they can be used on a standalone form.
  • Unlimited number of import configurations.
  • Export feeds importer configurations.
  • Optional libraries module support.

Requirements

Installation

  • Install Feeds, Feeds Admin UI.
  • To get started quick, install one or all of the following Feature modules: Feeds News, Feeds Import, Feeds Fast News (more info below).
  • Make sure cron is correctly configured https://backdropcms.org/user-guide/setting-cron
  • Go to import/ to import data.

SimplePie Installation

To install the SimplePie parser plugin, complete the following steps:

  1. Download SimplePie from http://simplepie.org/downloads. The recommended version is: 1.5.6.
  2. Decompress the downloaded zip file.
  3. Rename the uncompressed folder to simplepie. For example rename simplepie-1.5 to simplepie.
  4. Move the folder to /libraries. If the folder does not exist, created it. The final directory structure should be /libraries/simplepie.
  5. In order for your site to recognize this library, you have two options. Either install the Libraries module, or,
    put this line in your settings.php file: $config['feeds.settings']['feeds_library_dir'] = 'libraries';
  6. Flush the Backdrop cache.
  7. The SimplePie parser should be available now in the list of parsers.

PubSubHubbub support

Feeds supports the PubSubHubbub publish/subscribe protocol http://code.google.com/p/pubsubhubbub/. Follow these steps to set it up for your site.

  • Go to admin/structure/feeds and edit (override) the importer configuration you would like to use for PubSubHubbub.
  • Choose the HTTP Fetcher if it is not already selected.
  • On the HTTP Fetcher, click on 'settings' and check "Use PubSubHubbub".
  • Optionally you can use a designated hub such as http://superfeedr.com/ or your own. If a designated hub is specified, every feed on this importer configuration will be subscribed to this hub, no matter what the feed itself specifies.

Libraries support

If you are using the Libraries module, you can place external libraries in the Libraries module's search path (for instance /libraries). The only external library used at the moment is SimplePie.

Libraries found in the libraries search path are preferred over libraries in feeds/libraries/.

API Overview

See "The developer's guide to Feeds": http://drupal.org/node/622700

Testing

See "The developer's guide to Feeds": http://drupal.org/node/622700

Debugging

Set the Backdrop config variable feeds_debug to TRUE. This will create a file /tmp/feeds_[my_site_location].log. Use tail -f on the command line to get a live view of debug output. You can either set it in feeds.settings.json in your active configuration folder or by putting $config['feeds.settings']['feeds_debug'] = TRUE; into the settings.php file.

Note: at the moment, only PubSubHubbub related actions are logged.

Performance

See "The site builder's guide to Feeds": http://drupal.org/node/622698

Hidden settings

Hidden settings are variables that you can define by either updating them in feeds.settings.json in your active configuration folder or overriding them in settings.php file like this example: $config['feeds.settings']['NAME'] = VALUE;.

Name: feeds_debug
Default: FALSE
Description: Set to TRUE for enabling debug output to /BACKDROPTMPDIR/feeds_[sitename].log

Name: feeds_importer_class
Default: 'FeedsImporter'
Description: The class to use for importing feeds.

Name: feeds_source_class
Default: 'FeedsSource'
Description: The class to use for handling feed sources.

Name: feeds_data_$importer_id
Default: feeds_data_$importer_id
Description: The table used by FeedsDataProcessor to store feed items. Usually a FeedsDataProcessor builds a table name from a prefix (feeds_data_) and the importer's id ($importer_id). This default table name can be overridden by defining a variable with the same name.

Name: feeds_process_limit
Default: 50
Description: The number of nodes feed node processor creates or deletes in one page load.

Name: http_request_timeout
Default: 15
Description: Timeout in seconds to wait for an HTTP get request to finish.
Note: This setting could be overridden per importer in admin UI: admin/structure/feeds/<your_importer>/settings/<your_fetcher> page.

Name: feeds_never_use_curl
Default: FALSE
Description: Flag to stop feeds from using its cURL for http requests. See http_request_use_curl().

Name: feeds_use_mbstring
Default: TRUE
Description: The extension mbstring is used to convert encodings during parsing. The reason that this can be turned off is to be able to test Feeds behavior when the extension is not available.

Glossary

See "Feeds glossary": http://drupal.org/node/622710

License

This project is GPL v2 software. See the LICENSE.txt file in this directory for complete text.

Maintainers

Credits

Drupal version currently maintained by: