CODEWITHSUNDEEP
rssfeedparseratom-feed
sieben
sieben

Reputation: 2201

How to handle non unique item GUIDs/IDs in an RSS feed?

What is the correct response an RSS client should have when it encounters a feed that has multiple items with the same guid/identifier?

Currently in my application, any items that use an existing guid won't be cached or displayed because it believes it already has that item.

In this example feed a lot of items share this id:

tag:blizzard.com,2010-10-22:diablo3:feed:en-us:1

Upvotes: 1

Views: 2218

Answers (3)

Dave Winer
Dave Winer

Reputation: 1917

I think your app is doing it right. Don't get fancy. If you've already seen an item with that guid you don't present it a second time. You should contact whe webmaster for the feed if possible and alert them to the problem.

Upvotes: 5

Yzmir Ramirez
Yzmir Ramirez

Reputation: 1281

According to w3 when there are duplicate entries in an RSS feed:

Atom Processors MAY choose to display all of them or some subset of them. One typical behavior would be to display only the entry with the latest atom: updated timestamp.

I would go with the spec and display only the entry with the latest updated timestamp. Don't forget to send an email to Blizzard support and have them get their RSS validated - just don't threaten to keep them out of the next raid.

Take care.

Upvotes: 6

Brian Clapper
Brian Clapper

Reputation: 26220

Does each item have a unique URL? If so, fall back to using the URL.

Upvotes: 0

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