How to Use the Craigslist Rss Feed

Les wrote: ↑April 21st, 2020, 5:01 am Well I looked up the google rss feed plugin that you mentioned, and it did work. I noticed when examining the source code that its api rests on a cdn server so unless I can view the cdn source code I think it will require a lot more digging. From what I read thus far, RSS url's wrapped with html tags cannot be stripped of theses tags with regular regexs, an additional program would be required to achieve this...if the craigslist rss url can be passed through one these small programs then forwarded through rainmeter's webparser it might be possible. This is how I belive the rss feed is parsed successfully via the feedreader cdn approach their using. Sort of a round the back approach. If my understanding was correct.
Anyhow thanks all for responding.
So it looks doubtful from this vantagepoint it will succeed through rainmeter without Rainmeters owners getting directly involved.

But I'll post back if I succeed.

Craigslist does this to prevent unauthorized businesses from profiting ofcourse which is completely legit, but since this program is free hopefully this would be a non-issue for them.

It doesn't matter which server the RSS Feed Reader extension for Chrome (I believe this is what you were talking about when mentioning the "google rss feed plugin" in your post, right? or maybe Feedly?) relies on, actually. I'm sure parsing Craiglist's RSS works directly in Rainmeter if you add a modified regex accordingly, as I said in my last post, and that's probably how the Chrome extension is doing it as well: they probably just have a lot of scenarios covered in their parsing code (i.e. lots of if..then..else constructs), and use corresponding parsing structures / regexes based on which scenario is detected (e.g. a parsing structure for Atom feeds, another for RSS ones, another for Craiglist's custom format, etc).

EDIT : Wait a minute - just noticed the https://seattle.craigslist.org/search/ela?query=turntable URL in your WebParser measure ... THIS is what you want to parse?! Cause if it is, then this is definitely not an RSS feed, my friend. It's just a HTML, and yes, it can be parsed by Rainmeter directly. Just build your regex accordingly and that's it. For example, after viewing the page source in Chrome, copying and pasting its contents in a HTML "beautifier" service online (like HTML Formatter) and then copy pasting the result into Notepad++ and setting the "Language" of the file to HTML from the menu, the bits you're interested would look like:

Code: Select all

            ... <ul class="rows"> 	... 	<li class="result-row" ...> 		... 		<p class="result-info"> 			... 			<time class="result-date" datetime="2020-04-20 10:03" title="Mon 20 Apr 10:03:46 AM">Apr 20</time> 			... 			<a href="https://portland.craigslist.org/clk/ele/d/vancouver-mcs-100-watt-component-stereo/7103526971.html" ... class="result-title hdrlnk">MCS 100 Watt Component Stereo  W/Turntable</a> 			... 			<span class="result-meta"> 				... 				<span class="result-price">$180</span> 				... 				<span class="nearby" title="portland, OR">(pdx &gt; Vancouver)</span> 				... 			</span> 			... 		</p> 		... 	</li> 	... </ul> ...          

where the <li>...</li> part is obviously repeating itself for every "item" in the list. Having this scheme in front of your eyes, it becomes easy to write a regex for it (hopefully, you do know the basics about it, right?). Obviously, there aren't any line breaks, unnecessary spaces or tabs in the original source, as this has been "beautified" as previously mentioned, and the ... parts is where you'd add .* in your regex, as these are not of much interest.

So, yeah. If this was the "RSS feed" you were talking about (actually, just another HTML), then you have all you need to build a proper regex for it. Good luck! Feel free to ask, if you don't know something.

mcginncoutubts.blogspot.com

Source: https://forum.rainmeter.net/viewtopic.php?t=35059

Share this post