Hi,
I've built an iPhone application using
the parsing code
from the TopSongs sample iPhone application. I've hit a problem though -
the feed I'm trying to parse data
from doesn't have a separate
field for every piece of information (i.e. if it was for a feed about dogs, all
the information such as dog type, dog age and dog price is contained in
the feed. However,
the TopSongs app relies on information having its own tags, so instead of using it uses and .
So my question is this. How do I extract this information
from the description
field so that it can be parsed using
the TopSongs parser? Can you somehow extract
the dog age, price and type information using Yahoo Pipes and use that RSS feed for
the feed? Or is there code that I can add to do it in application?
Update: To view
the code of my application parser (based on
the TopSongs Core Data Apple provided application, see below.
Here's a sample of one item
from the the actual RSS feed I'm using (the description is longer, and has status,size, and a couple of other fields, but they're all formatted
the same.:
<item>
<title>MOE, MARGRET STREET</title>
<description> <b>District/Region:</b> REGION 09</br><b>Location:</b> MOE</br><b>Name:</b> MARGRET STREET</br></description>
<pubDate>Thu,11 Mar 2010 05:43:03 GMT</pubDate>
<guid>1266148</guid>
</item>
/*
File: iTunesRSSImporter.m
Abstract: Downloads, parses, and imports
the iTunes top songs RSS feed into Core Data.
Version: 1.1
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*/
#import "iTunesRSSImporter.h"
#import "Song.h"
#import "Category.h"
#import "CategoryCache.h"
#import <libxml/tree.h>
// Function prototypes for SAX callbacks. This sample implements a minimal subset of SAX callbacks.
// Depending on your application's needs, you might want to implement more callbacks.
static void startElementSAX(void *context, const xmlChar *localname, const xmlChar *prefix, const xmlChar *URI, int nb_namespaces, const xmlChar **namespaces, int nb_attributes, int nb_defaulted, const xmlChar **attributes);
static void endElementSAX(void *context, const xmlChar *localname, const xmlChar *prefix, const xmlChar *URI);
static void charactersFoundSAX(void *context, const xmlChar *characters, int length);
static void errorEncounteredSAX(void *context, const char *errorMessage, ...);
// Forward reference.
The structure is defined in full at
the end of
the file.
static xmlSAXHandler simpleSAXHandlerStruct;
// Class extension for private properties and methods.
@interface iTunesRSSImporter ()
@property BOOL storingCharacters;
@property (nonatomic, retain) NSMutableData *characterBuffer;
@property BOOL done;
@property BOOL parsingASong;
@property NSUInteger countForCurrentBatch;
@property (nonatomic, retain) Song *currentSong;
@property (nonatomic, retain) NSURLConnection *rssConnection;
@property (nonatomic, retain) NSDateFormatter *dateFormatter;
//
The autorelease pool property is assign because autorelease pools cannot be retained.
@property (nonatomic, assign) NSAutoreleasePool *importPool;
@end
static double lookuptime = 0;
@implementation iTunesRSSImporter
@synthesize iTunesURL, delegate, persistentStoreCoordinator;
@synthesize rssConnection, done, parsingASong, storingCharacters, currentSong, countForCurrentBatch, characterBuffer, dateFormatter, importPool;
- (void)dealloc {
[iTunesURL release];
[characterBuffer release];
[currentSong release];
[rssConnection release];
[dateFormatter release];
[persistentStoreCoordinator release];
[insertionContext release];
[songEntityDescription release];
[theCache release];
[super dealloc];
}
- (void)main {
self.importPool = [[NSAutoreleasePool alloc] init];
if (delegate && [delegate respondsToSelector:@selector(importerDidSave:)]) {
[[NSNotificationCenter defaultCenter] addObserver:delegate selector:@selector(importerDidSave:) name:NSManagedObjectContextDidSaveNotification object:self.insertionContext];
}
done = NO;
self.dateFormatter = [[[NSDateFormatter alloc] init] autorelease];
[dateFormatter setDateStyle:NSDateFormatterLongStyle];
[dateFormatter setTimeStyle:NSDateFormatterNoStyle];
// necessary because iTunes RSS feed is not localized, so if
the device region has been set to other than US
//
the date formatter must be set to US locale in order to parse
the dates
[dateFormatter setLocale:[[[NSLocale alloc] initWithLocaleIdentifier:@"US"] autorelease]];
self.characterBuffer = [NSMutableData data];
NSURLRequest *theRequest = [NSURLRequest requestWithURL:iTunesURL];
// create
the connection with
the request and start loading
the data
rssConnection = [[NSURLConnection alloc] initWithRequest:theRequest delegate:self];
// This creates a context for "push" parsing in which chunks of data that are not "well balanced" can be passed
// to
the context for streaming parsing.
The handler structure defined above will be used for all
the parsing.
//
The second argument, self, will be passed as user data to each of
the SAX handlers.
The last three arguments
// are left blank to avoid creating a tree in memory.
context = xmlCreatePushParserCtxt(&simpleSAXHandlerStruct, self, NULL, 0, NULL);
if (rssConnection != nil) {
do {
[[NSRunLoop currentRunLoop] runMode:NSDefaultRunLoopMode beforeDate:[NSDate distantFuture]];
} while (!done);
}
// Display
the total time spent finding a specific object for a relationship
NSLog(@"lookup time %f", lookuptime);
// Release resources used only in this thread.
xmlFreeParserCtxt(context);
self.characterBuffer = nil;
self.dateFormatter = nil;
self.rssConnection = nil;
self.currentSong = nil;
[theCache release];
theCache = nil;
NSError *saveError = nil;
NSAssert1([insertionContext save:&saveError], @"Unhandled error saving managed object context in import thread: %@", [saveError localizedDescription]);
if (delegate && [delegate respondsToSelector:@selector(importerDidSave:)]) {
[[NSNotificationCenter defaultCenter] removeObserver:delegate name:NSManagedObjectContextDidSaveNotification object:self.insertionContext];
}
if (self.delegate != nil && [self.delegate respondsToSelector:@selector(importerDidFinishParsingData:)]) {
[self.delegate importerDidFinishParsingData:self];
}
[importPool release];
self.importPool = nil;
}
- (NSManagedObjectContext *)insertionContext {
if (insertionContext == nil) {
insertionContext = [[NSManagedObjectContext alloc] init];
[insertionContext setPersistentStoreCoordinator:self.persistentStoreCoordinator];
}
return insertionContext;
}
- (void)forwardError:(NSError *)error {
if (self.delegate != nil && [self.delegate respondsToSelector:@selector(importer:didFailWithError:)]) {
[self.delegate importer:self didFailWithError:error];
}
}
- (NSEntityDescription *)songEntityDescription {
if (songEntityDescription == nil) {
songEntityDescription = [[NSEntityDescription entityForName:@"Song" inManagedObjectContext:self.insertionContext] retain];
}
return songEntityDescription;
}
- (CategoryCache *)theCache {
if (theCache == nil) {
theCache = [[CategoryCache alloc] init];
theCache.managedObjectContext = self.insertionContext;
}
return theCache;
}
- (Song *)currentSong {
if (currentSong == nil) {
currentSong = [[Song alloc] initWithEntity:self.songEntityDescription insertIntoManagedObjectContext:self.insertionContext];
}
return currentSong;
}
#pragma mark NSURLConnection Delegate methods
// Forward errors to
the delegate.
- (void)connection:(NSURLConnection *)connection didFailWithError:(NSError *)error {
[self performSelectorOnMainThread:@selector(forwardError:) withObject:error waitUntilDone:NO];
// Set
the condition which ends
the run loop.
done = YES;
}
// Called when a chunk of data has been downloaded.
- (void)connection:(NSURLConnection *)connection didReceiveData:(NSData *)data {
// Process
the downloaded chunk of data.
xmlParseChunk(context, (const char *)[data bytes], [data length], 0);
}
- (void)connectionDidFinishLoading:(NSURLConnection *)connection {
// Signal
the context that parsing is complete by passing "1" as
the last parameter.
xmlParseChunk(context, NULL, 0, 1);
context = NULL;
// Set
the condition which ends
the run loop.
done = YES;
}
#pragma mark Parsing support methods
static const NSUInteger kImportBatchSize = 20;
- (void)finishedCurrentSong {
parsingASong = NO;
self.currentSong = nil;
countForCurrentBatch++;
// Periodically purge
the autorelease pool and save
the context.
The frequency of this action may need to be tuned according to
the
// size of
the objects being parsed.
The goal is to keep
the autorelease pool
from growing too large, but
// taking this action too frequently would be wasteful and reduce performance.
if (countForCurrentBatch == kImportBatchSize) {
[importPool release];
self.importPool = [[NSAutoreleasePool alloc] init];
NSError *saveError = nil;
NSAssert1([insertionContext save:&saveError], @"Unhandled error saving managed object context in import thread: %@", [saveError localizedDescription]);
countForCurrentBatch = 0;
}
}
/*
Character data is appended to a buffer until
the current element ends.
*/
- (void)appendCharacters:(const char *)charactersFound length:(NSInteger)length {
[characterBuffer appendBytes:charactersFound length:length];
}
- (NSString *)currentString {
// Create a string with
the character data using UTF-8 encoding. UTF-8 is
the default XML data encoding.
NSString *currentString = [[[NSString alloc] initWithData:characterBuffer encoding:NSUTF8StringEncoding] autorelease];
[characterBuffer setLength:0];
return currentString;
}
@end
#pragma mark SAX Parsing Callbacks
//
The following constants are
the XML element names and their string lengths for parsing comparison.
//
The lengths include
the null terminator, to ensure exact matches.
static const char *kName_Item = "item";
static const NSUInteger kLength_Item = 5;
static const char *kName_Title = "title";
static const NSUInteger kLength_Title = 6;
static const char *kName_Category = "category";
static const NSUInteger kLength_Category = 9;
static const char *kName_Itms = "itms";
static const NSUInteger kLength_Itms = 5;
static const char *kName_Artist = "description";
static const NSUInteger kLength_Artist = 7;
static const char *kName_Album = "description";
static const NSUInteger kLength_Album = 6;
static const char *kName_ReleaseDate = "releasedate";
static const NSUInteger kLength_ReleaseDate = 12;
/*
This callback is invoked when
the importer finds
the beginning of a node in
the XML. For this application,
out parsing needs are relatively modest - we need only match
the node name. An "item" node is a record of
data about a song. In that case we create a new Song object.
The other nodes of interest are several of
the
child nodes of
the Song currently being parsed. For those nodes we want to accumulate
the character data
in a buffer. Some of
the child nodes use a namespace prefix.
*/
static void startElementSAX(void *parsingContext, const xmlChar *localname, const xmlChar *prefix, const xmlChar *URI,
int nb_namespaces, const xmlChar **namespaces, int nb_attributes, int nb_defaulted, const xmlChar **attributes) {
iTunesRSSImporter *importer = (iTunesRSSImporter *)parsingContext;
//
The second parameter to strncmp is
the name of
the element, which we known
from the XML schema of
the feed.
//
The third parameter to strncmp is
the number of characters in
the element name, plus 1 for
the null terminator.
if (prefix == NULL && !strncmp((const char *)localname, kName_Item, kLength_Item)) {
importer.parsingASong = YES;
} else if (importer.parsingASong && ( (prefix == NULL && (!strncmp((const char *)localname, kName_Title, kLength_Title) || !strncmp((const char *)localname, kName_Category, kLength_Category))) || ((prefix != NULL && !strncmp((const char *)prefix, kName_Itms, kLength_Itms)) && (!strncmp((const char *)localname, kName_Artist, kLength_Artist) || !strncmp((const char *)localname, kName_Album, kLength_Album) || !strncmp((const char *)localname, kName_ReleaseDate, kLength_ReleaseDate))) )) {
importer.storingCharacters = YES;
}
}
/*
This callback is invoked when
the parse reaches
the end of a node. At that point we finish processing that node,
if it is of interest to us. For "item" nodes, that means we have completed parsing a Song object. We pass
the song
to a method in
the superclass which will eventually deliver it to
the delegate. For
the other nodes we
care about, this means we have all
the character data.
The next step is to create an NSString using
the buffer
contents and store that with
the current Song object.
*/
static void endElementSAX(void *parsingContext, const xmlChar *localname, const xmlChar *prefix, const xmlChar *URI) {
iTunesRSSImporter *importer = (iTunesRSSImporter *)parsingContext;
if (importer.parsingASong == NO) return;
if (prefix == NULL) {
if (!strncmp((const char *)localname, kName_Item, kLength_Item)) {
[importer finishedCurrentSong];
} else if (!strncmp((const char *)localname, kName_Title, kLength_Title)) {
importer.currentSong.title = importer.currentString;
} else if (!strncmp((const char *)localname, kName_Category, kLength_Category)) {
double before = [NSDate timeIntervalSinceReferenceDate];
Category *category = [importer.theCache categoryWithName:importer.currentString];
double delta = [NSDate timeIntervalSinceReferenceDate] - before;
lookuptime += delta;
importer.currentSong.category = category;
}
} else if (!strncmp((const char *)prefix, kName_Itms, kLength_Itms)) {
if (!strncmp((const char *)localname, kName_Artist, kLength_Artist)) {
NSString *string = importer.currentSong.artist;
NSArray *strings = [string componentsSeparatedByString: @", "];
//importer.currentSong.artist = importer.currentString;
} else if (!strncmp((const char *)localname, kName_Album, kLength_Album)) {
importer.currentSong.album = importer.currentString;
} else if (!strncmp((const char *)localname, kName_ReleaseDate, kLength_ReleaseDate)) {
NSString *dateString = importer.currentString;
importer.currentSong.releaseDate = [importer.dateFormatter dateFromString:dateString];
}
}
importer.storingCharacters = NO;
}
/*
This callback is invoked when
the parser encounters character data inside a node.
The importer class determines how to use
the character data.
*/
static void charactersFoundSAX(void *parsingContext, const xmlChar *characterArray, int numberOfCharacters) {
iTunesRSSImporter *importer = (iTunesRSSImporter *)parsingContext;
// A state variable, "storingCharacters", is set when nodes of interest begin and end.
// This determines whether character data is handled or ignored.
if (importer.storingCharacters == NO) return;
[importer appendCharacters:(const char *)characterArray length:numberOfCharacters];
}
/*
A production application should include robust error handling as part of its parsing implementation.
The specifics of how errors are handled depends on
the application.
*/
static void errorEncounteredSAX(void *parsingContext, const char *errorMessage, ...) {
// Handle errors as appropriate for your application.
NSCAssert(NO, @"Unhandled error encountered during SAX parse.");
}
//
The handler struct has positions for a large number of callback functions. If NULL is supplied at a given position,
// that callback functionality won't be used. Refer to libxml documentation at http://www.xmlsoft.org for more information
// about
the SAX callbacks.
static xmlSAXHandler simpleSAXHandlerStruct = {
NULL, /* internalSubset */
NULL, /* isStandalone */
NULL, /* hasInternalSubset */
NULL, /* hasExternalSubset */
NULL, /* resolveEntity */
NULL, /* getEntity */
NULL, /* entityDecl */
NULL, /* notationDecl */
NULL, /* attributeDecl */
NULL, /* elementDecl */
NULL, /* unparsedEntityDecl */
NULL, /* setDocumentLocator */
NULL, /* startDocument */
NULL, /* endDocument */
NULL, /* startElement*/
NULL, /* endElement */
NULL, /* reference */
charactersFoundSAX, /* characters */
NULL, /* ignorableWhitespace */
NULL, /* processingInstruction */
NULL, /* comment */
NULL, /* warning */
errorEncounteredSAX, /* error */
NULL, /* fatalError //: unused error() get all
the errors */
NULL, /* getParameterEntity */
NULL, /* cdataBlock */
NULL, /* externalSubset */
XML_SAX2_MAGIC, //
NULL,
startElementSAX, /* startElementNs */
endElementSAX, /* endElementNs */
NULL, /* serror */
};
Thanks.
