Chapter 48

Syndication

Do you have some structured data to offer, data that changes from time to time? With many web sites, RSS or Atom symbols allow you to subscribe with feed readers. Really Simple Syndication (RSS) is an XML format that allows syndicate information. RSS became very popular with blogs. This XML information makes it easy to subscribe to using RSS readers.

Nowadays, RSS is not only used with blogs but with many different data sources, such as online news magazines. Any data that changes from time to time is offered by RSS or by its successor protocol Atom. Internet Explorer 7 and Outlook 2007 offer RSS and Atom readers that are integrated into the product.

.NET 3.5 extends Windows Communication Foundation (WCF) with syndication features. Syndication classes are defined within the namespace System.ServiceModel.Syndication. This namespace provides classes that can be used to both read and write RSS and Atom feeds.

This chapter shows you how to create syndication readers, as well as how data can be offered. This chapter offers the following:

  • An overview of System.ServiceModel.Syndication
  • Information about Syndication Reader
  • Information about Syndication Feeds

Overview of System.Servicemodel.Syndication

System.ServiceModel.Syndication is a new namespace with .NET 3.5 that allows you to offer data in the RSS or Atom format.

With the release of RSS version 2.0, RSS is now the shorthand notation for Really Simple Syndication. In earlier versions, it had the name RDF ...

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