NAME Feed::Pipe - Pipe Atom/RSS feeds through UNIX-style high-level filters SYNOPSIS use Feed::Pipe; my $pipe = Feed::Pipe ->new(title => "Mah Bukkit") ->cat( qw(1.xml 2.rss 3.atom) ) ->grep(sub{$_->title =~ /lolrus/i }) ->sort ->head ; my $feed = $pipe->as_atom_obj; # returns XML::Atom::Feed # Add feed details such as author and self link. Then... print $feed->as_xml; DESCRIPTION This module is a Feed model that can mimic the functionality of standard UNIX pipe and filter style text processing tools. Instead of operating on lines from text files, it operates on entries from Atom (or RSS) feeds. The idea is to provide a high-level tool set for combining, filtering, and otherwise manipulating bunches of Atom data from various feeds. Yes, you could do this with Yahoo Pipes. Until they decide to take it down, or start charging for it. And if your code is guaranteed to have Internet access. Also, you could probably do it with Plagger, if you're genius enough to figure out how. CONSTRUCTOR To construct a feed pipe, call new(%options), where the keys of %options correspond to any of the method names described under ACCESSOR METHODS. If you do not need to set any options, cat may also be called on a class and will return an instance. my $pipe = Feed::Pipe->new(title => 'Test Feed'); FILTER METHODS cat(@feeds) my $pipe = Feed::Pipe->new(title => 'Test')->cat(@feeds); # This also works: my $pipe = Feed::Pipe->cat(@feeds); Combine entries from each feed listed, in the order received, into a single feed. RSS feeds will automatically be converted to Atom before their entries are added. (NOTE: Some data may be lost in the conversion. See XML::Feed.) If called as a class method, will implicitly call new with no options to return an instance before adding the passed @feeds. Values passed to cat may be an instance of Feed::Pipe, XML::Atom::Feed, XML::Feed, or URI, a reference to a scalar variable containing the XML to parse, or a filename that contains the XML to parse. URI objects will be dereferenced and fetched, and the result parsed. Returns the feed pipe itself so that you can chain method calls. grep(sub{}) # Keeps all entries with the word "Keep" in the title my $pipe = Feed::Pipe ->cat($feed) ->grep( sub { $_->title =~ /Keep/ } ) ; Filters the list of entries to those for which the passed function returns true. If no function is passed, the default is to keep entries which have content (or a summary). The function should test the entry object aliased in $_ which will be a XML::Atom::Entry. Returns the feed pipe itself so that you can chain method calls. head(Int $limit=10) Output $limit entries from the top of the feed, where $limit defaults to 10. If your entries are sorted in standard reverse chronological order, this will pull the $limit most recent entries. Returns the feed pipe itself so that you can chain method calls. map(\&mapfunction) # Converts upper CASE to lower case in each entry title. my $pipe = Feed::Pipe ->cat($feed) ->map( sub { $_->title =~ s/CASE/case/; return $_; } ) ; Constructs a new list of entries composed of the return values from mapfunction. The mapfunc must return one or more XML::Atom::Entry objects, or an empty list. Within the mapfunction $_ will be aliased to the XML::Atom::Entry it is visiting. Returns the feed pipe itself so that you can chain method calls. reverse() Returns the feed with entries sorted in the opposite of the input order. This is just for completeness, you could easily do this with sort instead. sort(sub{}) # Returns a feed with entries sorted by title my $pipe = Feed::Pipe ->cat($feed) ->sort(sub{$_[0]->title cmp $_[1]->title}) ; Sort the feed's entries using the comparison function passed as the argument. If no function is passed, sorts in standard reverse chronological order. The sort function should be as described in Perl's sort, but using $_[0] and $_[1] in place of $a and $b, respectively. The two arguments will be XML::Atom::Entry objects. Returns the feed pipe itself so that you can chain method calls. tail(Int $limit=10) Output $limit entries from the end of the feed, where $limit defaults to 10. If your entries are sorted in standard reverse chronological order, this will pull the $limit oldest entries. Returns the feed pipe itself so that you can chain method calls. ACCESSOR METHODS NOTE: These methods are not filters. They do not return the feed pipe and must not be used in a filter chain (except maybe at the end). title Human readable title of the feed. Defaults to "Combined Feed". id A string conforming to the definition of an Atom ID. Defaults to a newly generated UUID. updated A DateTime object representing when the feed should claim to have been updated. Defaults to "now". OTHER METHODS NOTE: These methods are not filters. They do not return the feed pipe and must not be used in a filter chain (except maybe at the end). as_atom_obj Returns the XML::Atom::Feed object represented by the feed pipe. as_xml Serialize the feed object to an XML (Atom 1.0) string and return the string. Equivalent to calling $pipe->as_atom_obj->as_xml. NOTE: The current implementation does not guarantee that the resultant output will be valid Atom. In particular, you are likely to be missing required author and link elements. For the moment, you should use as_atom_obj and manipulate the feed-level elements as needed if you require validatable output. count Returns the number of entries in the feed. entries Returns the list of XML::Atom::Entry objects in the feed.