How do I create a very specific RSS feed from a webpage?
April 5, 2013 11:05 AM Subscribe
I want to set up a RSS feed that spits out the wind speed ONLY from this weather page.
I’ve tried using Yahoo Pipes to create a more focused feed but I’m not having luck. I’ve tried “fetch page data” but I always get a blank feed at the end of the pipe.
I’m not married to using Yahoo Pipes. If you can suggest another service that is easier to use, I’ll take it. But Pipes is the only service I can find which suggests it could gather very specific data from a page/rss feed.
I’ve tried using Yahoo Pipes to create a more focused feed but I’m not having luck. I’ve tried “fetch page data” but I always get a blank feed at the end of the pipe.
I’m not married to using Yahoo Pipes. If you can suggest another service that is easier to use, I’ll take it. But Pipes is the only service I can find which suggests it could gather very specific data from a page/rss feed.
This seems like an X-Y problem.
What are you actually trying to do once you have the RSS feed? We may be able to offer better solutions based on what your end goal is, instead of just this specific implementation option.
posted by rockindata at 11:27 AM on April 5, 2013
What are you actually trying to do once you have the RSS feed? We may be able to offer better solutions based on what your end goal is, instead of just this specific implementation option.
posted by rockindata at 11:27 AM on April 5, 2013
Response by poster: My plan is to link the data to a twitter account using twitterfeed. I want it to be automatic, every hour or two hours or whatever...
posted by Brodiggitty at 11:30 AM on April 5, 2013
posted by Brodiggitty at 11:30 AM on April 5, 2013
Hi Brody! The web service IFTTT (If This Then That) is designed for stuff like this. You can use it to, for example, automatically tweet something when a certain keyword shows up in an RSS feed. But I'm not sure it will work for this situation because the "Wind" keyword is buried in the middle of a bunch of other data, and I don't know how to use IFTTT to extract just the wind speed data from the RSS content. But IFTTT might be a good place to start.
posted by oulipian at 11:36 AM on April 5, 2013 [1 favorite]
posted by oulipian at 11:36 AM on April 5, 2013 [1 favorite]
Response by poster: Thanks Oulipan - This is almost what I want. I was actually looking to do this for Wreckhouse's weather. Just realized I posted the wrong EC weather page in my question. IFTTT has weather for many areas but not Wreckhouse. I bet if I drill down enough in its options, I may find a way to do this.
posted by Brodiggitty at 11:54 AM on April 5, 2013
posted by Brodiggitty at 11:54 AM on April 5, 2013
If IFTTT doesn't give you the control you need, you could set up a cron job (linux) or schedule a task (windows) to run a script (shell, perl, php, python, ruby, powershell) that fetches the page, retrieves the wind speed with a regular expression, then uses the twitter API to create the tweet.
The important key words are in bold. Use the above when you talk to a friend who's good at that sort of thing, or learn it yourself in a day or two and put it together.
posted by jsturgill at 11:56 AM on April 5, 2013
The important key words are in bold. Use the above when you talk to a friend who's good at that sort of thing, or learn it yourself in a day or two and put it together.
posted by jsturgill at 11:56 AM on April 5, 2013
Here you go. Feel free to clone/edit. Basically it just strips out everything but the wind from the feed jsturgill posted, then changes the title to show the time.
posted by zsazsa at 11:56 AM on April 5, 2013 [3 favorites]
posted by zsazsa at 11:56 AM on April 5, 2013 [3 favorites]
Oh, cool. Yahoo Pipes has regexes? That's a Neat Thing.
posted by jsturgill at 12:01 PM on April 5, 2013
posted by jsturgill at 12:01 PM on April 5, 2013
Response by poster: Thanks you zsazsa! That is exactly what I want. Just going to clone and edit the location slightly. Thanks everyone. I sort of know Regexes is what I needed to learn but to busy/lazy to learn the programming.
posted by Brodiggitty at 12:03 PM on April 5, 2013
posted by Brodiggitty at 12:03 PM on April 5, 2013
Be sure to post the Twitter handle here once you get it set up! :)
posted by oulipian at 3:08 PM on April 5, 2013
posted by oulipian at 3:08 PM on April 5, 2013
« Older Zillions Magazine equivalents for Kids These Days? | Critique my California Road Trip/San Francisco... Newer »
This thread is closed to new comments.
Is this a thing you want to display embedded on another website, or log in a database at regular intervals, or what?
posted by jsturgill at 11:25 AM on April 5, 2013