rss2irc: watches an RSS/Atom feed and writes it to an IRC channel

This bot polls a single RSS or Atom feed and announces updates to an IRC channel, with options for customizing output and behavior. It aims to be a simple, dependable bot that does its job and creates no problems.

Usage: rss2irc FEEDURL [BOTNAME@IRCSERVER/#CHANNEL] [OPTS] Options: -p PORT --port=PORT irc server port (default 6667) --ident=STR set the bot's identity string (useful for contact info) --delay=N wait for N minutes before starting (helps avoid mass joins) -i N --interval=N polling interval in minutes (default 5) --idle=N announce only when channel has been idle N minutes (default 0) -m N --max-items=N announce at most N items per polling interval (default 5) -r N --recent=N announce up to N recent items at startup (default 0) --announce=topnew|allnew|top which items to announce (default: topnew) --no-title don't show title (title is announced by default, up to 100 chars) -a --author show author (up to 50 chars) -d --description show description (up to 300 chars) -l --link show link URL (up to 200 chars) -t --time show timestamp (up to 50 chars) -e --email show email addresses (stripped by default) -h --html show HTML tags and entities (stripped by default) --dupe-descriptions show identical consecutive descriptions (elided by default) --replace="OLD/NEW" replace OLD with NEW (regexpr patterns) -n N --num-iterations=N exit after N iterations -q --quiet silence normal console output --debug do not connect to irc (same as no irc argument) --debug-irc show irc activity --debug-feed show feed items and polling stats --debug-xml show feed content --debug-http show feed fetching progress

For example, to announce Hackage updates:

rss2irc http://hackage.haskell.org/packages/archive/recent.rss mybot@irc.freenode.org/#haskell

Release notes for 0.4.2, 2009-09-27:

• fix a bug where every --max-items-th announcement was skipped

Release notes for 0.4.1, 2009-09-26:

• fix release notes issues

Release notes for 0.4, 2009-09-26:

• wait for server connection confirmation before JOIN command. Problem was observed on irc.quakenet.org since it refuses to join or any commands before connection is confirmed by server. (Radoslav Dorcik)

• feed polling now recovers from transient failures

• can poll a local file: uri as well as remote uris. Works if the uri is of the form "file:FILE", at least. Useful for testing and eg for announcing a feed generated from a darcs posthook.

• more robust new item detection, with some alternate strategies available via the --announce option. The choices are: topnew - new unseen items at the top (default, good for most feeds); allnew - new unseen items anywhere; top - any items above the previous top item.

• --idle option, waits for N minutes of channel idle time before announcing

• limit individual field sizes, preventing too many irc messages per item. Most announcements should now fit in one irc message, and pretty much all should fit in two.

• misc. output improvements: elide identical consecutive item descriptions, split long announcements on a word boundary, try to complete a split announcement within a batch, better whitespace handling

• logging improvements

• --delay now takes minutes, not seconds

Downloads

• rss2irc-0.4.2.tar.gz [browse] (Cabal source package)
• Package description (as included in the package)

Maintainer's Corner

Package maintainers

• DonaldStewart, SimonMichael

For package maintainers and hackage trustees

• edit package information

Candidates

• No Candidates