OPML, the feed of feeds.  Really.  I recently got a chance to work with opml, and I was bored on a sunday night, so I thought I would share with you a couple of thing I observed. 

First off the link:

opml and asp.net – That helped with parsing the opml file and getting a dataset from it. 

OPML files for the most part have a simple layout.  <outline> tags that hold attributes for the feeds type, xml link, site link, and title.  You can add a couple more things, but really that is basically what you will see in every opml file.  

According to opml.org the goal of opml is:

 The purpose of this format is to provide a way to exchange information between outliners and Internet services that can be browsed or controlled through an outliner.

OPML is also the file format for an outliner application, which is why OPML files may contain information about the size, position and expansion state of the window the outline is displayed in. 

I’m not really sure what they mean by that, but I do know that opml is the way to import / export / transfer subscription lists.  And since the web is crazy with subscriptions these days, opml is found in most feed readers.  So if you are writing a feed reader, you should have it on your feature list.

Well opml is really no more complex then that.  So I’m going to get back to coding…

This entry was posted on Sunday, May 25th, 2008 at 8:31 pm and is filed under Notes. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.