Club Drupal

"It feeds"

FEEDS

=====

An import and aggregation framework for Drupal.

http://drupal.org/project/feeds

Features

========

- Pluggable import configurations consisting of fetchers (get data) parsers

  (read and transform data) and processors (create content on Drupal).

-- 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 piggy backed 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 import configurations to code.

- Optional libraries module support.

Requirements

============

- CTools 7.x-1.x

  http://drupal.org/project/ctools

- Job Scheduler

  http://drupal.org/project/job_scheduler

- Drupal 7.x

  http://drupal.org/project/drupal

- PHP safe mode is not supported, depending on your Feeds Importer configuration

  safe mode may cause no problems though.

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 http://drupal.org/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: 1.3.

  2. Decompress the downloaded zip file.

  3. Rename the uncompressed folder to 'simplepie'.

     For example rename 'simplepie-simplepie-e9472a1' to 'simplepie'.

  4. Move the folder to sites/all/libraries. The final directory structure

     should be sites/all/libraries/simplepie.

  5. Flush the Drupal cache.

  6. The SimplePie parser should be available now in the list of parsers.

Feature modules

===============

Feeds ships with three feature modules that can be enabled on

admin/build/modules or - if you are using Features - on admin/build/features.

http://drupal.org/project/features

The purpose of these modules is to provide a quick start for using Feeds. You

can either use them out of the box as they come or you can take them as samples

to learn how to build import or aggregation functionality with Feeds.

The feature modules merely contain sets of configurations using Feeds and in

some cases the modules Node, Views or Data. If the default configurations do not

fit your use case you can change them on the respective configuration pages for

Feeds, Node, Views or Data.

Here is a description of the provided feature modules:

- Feeds News -

This feature is a news aggregator. It provides a content type "Feed" that can

be used to subscribe to RSS or Atom feeds. Every item on such a feed is

aggregated as a node of the type "Feed item", also provided by the module.

What's neat about Feeds News is that it comes with a configured View that shows

a list of news items with every feed on the feed node's "View items" tab. It

also comes with an OPML importer filter that can be accessed under /import.

- Feeds Import -

This feature is an example illustrating Feeds' import capabilities. It contains

a node importer and a user importer that can be accessed under /import. Both

accept CSV or TSV files as imports.

PubSubHubbub support

====================

Feeds supports the PubSubHubbub publish/subscribe protocol. Follow these steps

to set it up for your site.

https://github.com/pubsubhubbub/

- Go to admin/build/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 Libraries module, you can place external libraries in the

Libraries module's search path (for instance sites/all/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/.

Transliteration support

=======================

If you plan to store files with Feeds - for instance when storing podcasts

or images from syndication feeds - it is recommended to enable the

Transliteration module to avoid issues with non-ASCII characters in file names.

http://drupal.org/project/transliteration

API Overview

============

See "The developer's guide to Feeds":

http://drupal.org/node/622700

Running the Drush integration tests

===================================

In order the run Drush integration tests, Drush itself needs to be installed

with its *dev dependencies*. Furthermore, the phpunit version that comes with

Drush should be used for running the tests (instead of a globally installed

phpunit), as that one has proven to be compatible with the Drush tests.

  1. Git clone of Drush 8.

       git clone --branch 8.x https://github.com/drush-ops/drush.git

       cd drush

  2. Install Drush with dev dependencies using Composer.

       composer install

     And ensure that the following text is displayed:

       "Loading composer repositories with package information

       Installing dependencies (including require-dev) from lock file"

     Especially note that Composer says 'including require-dev'. This means that

     the Drush dev dependencies are installed (including phpunit).

  3. Execute a command like the following:

       UNISH_NO_TIMEOUTS=1 UNISH_DRUPAL_MAJOR_VERSION=7 /path/to/drush/vendor/bin/phpunit --configuration /path/to/drush/tests /path/to/feeds/tests/drush

     Replace '/path/to' with the appropriate path to the directory in question.

     Also be sure to point to the phpunit version that comes with Drush.

     So if Drush is installed in /users/megachriz/drush and the Feeds module is

     located at /users/megachriz/Sites/drupal7/sites/all/modules/feeds:

       UNISH_NO_TIMEOUTS=1 UNISH_DRUPAL_MAJOR_VERSION=7 /users/megachriz/drush/vendor/bin/phpunit --configuration /users/megachriz/drush/tests /users/megachriz/Sites/drupal7/sites/all/modules/feeds/tests/drush

Debugging

=========

Set the Drupal variable 'feeds_debug' to TRUE (i. e. using drush). 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.

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 adding them to the $conf

array in your settings.php file.

Name:        feeds_debug

Default:     FALSE

Description: Set to TRUE for enabling debug output to

             /DRUPALTMPDIR/feeds_[sitename].log

Name:        feeds_library_dir

Default:     FALSE

Description: The location where Feeds should look for libraries that it uses.

             You can use this variable to override the libraries that are in

             the Feeds libraries folder, for example "http_request.inc".

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_process_limit

Default:     50

             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_http_file_cache_dir

Default:     private://feeds/cache

Description: The location on the file system where results of HTTP requests are

             cached.

Name:        feeds_in_progress_dir

Default:     private://feeds/in_progress

Description: The location on the file system where temporary files are stored

             that are in progress of being imported.

Name:        feeds_sync_cache_feeds_http_interval

Default:     21600

Description: How often the feeds cache directory should be checked for orphaned

             cache files.

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