How to get the description of a news Item from GOOGLE AJAX Feed API

Question

I am using a script to load news from different sources, using Google AJAX feed API. How can I get the description of an entry? Below is an hello world program:

<html>
  <head>
    <script type="text/javascript" src="https://www.google.com/jsapi"></script>
    <script type="text/javascript">

    google.load("feeds", "1");

    function initialize() {
      var feed = new google.feeds.Feed("http://news.google.com/?output=rss");
      feed.load(function(result) {
        if (!result.error) {
          var container = document.getElementById("feed");
          for (var i = 0; i < result.feed.entries.length; i++) {
            var entry = result.feed.entries[i];
            var div = document.createElement("div");
            div.appendChild(document.createTextNode(entry.title));
            container.appendChild(div);
          }
        }
      });
    }
    google.setOnLoadCallback(initialize);

    </script>
  </head>
  <body>
    <div id="feed"></div>
  </body>
</html>

How can I get the description using the entry object??? I am using the google URL - http://news.google.com/?output=rss for RSS feeds in XML format. I want the "Description" part. How can I get that

score 3 · Accepted Answer · answered May 19 '12 at 22:15

You can get the description, but you can't use the JSON format and the entry object to do it. If you read the feed parameters at https://developers.google.com/feed/v1/devguide carefully, you'll see that description is not a field it returns at the entry level - just at the feed level.

To do it, you need to request the feed in XML format, and then load the individual nodes, including description. Here's the relevant snippet I've used to do it - change the formatting etc. as you need.

function initialize() {
   var feed = new google.feeds.Feed("http://myblog.com/blog/feed/");
   feed.setResultFormat(google.feeds.Feed.XML_FORMAT);
   feed.load(function(result) {
   if (!result.error) {
    var items = result.xmlDocument.getElementsByTagName('item');
    item = items[0];

    //build each element
    var title = document.createElement("h4");
    title.innerHTML = item.getElementsByTagName('title')[0].firstChild.nodeValue;

    var content = document.createElement("p");
    content.innerHTML = item.getElementsByTagName('description')[0].firstChild.nodeValue;

    href = item.getElementsByTagName('link')[0].firstChild.nodeValue;
   }

score 2 · Answer 2 · answered Feb 26 '12 at 12:48

2

The HTML description can be retrieved by using the content variable. Thus you should have: div.appendChild(document.createTextNode(entry.content));

Be aware that this will retrieve HTML data format.

answered Feb 26 '12 at 12:48

Yves Lange

3,914
3
21
33

score 1 · Answer 3 · answered Sep 30 '14 at 21:20

After much digging, I found that the Google API uses "contentSnippet" instead of description. No XML formatting needed.

function initialize() {
    var feed = new google.feeds.Feed("http://myblog.com/blog/feed/");   
    feed.setNumEntries(10);
    feed.load(function(result) {
        if (!result.error) {

            $(document).ready(function(){   
                $('#feed-pull').append('<ul></ul>'); 
                for (var i = 0; i < result.feed.entries.length; i++) {
                    var entry = result.feed.entries[i];                     
                    var desc = entry.contentSnippet;

score -1 · Answer 4 · answered Feb 26 '12 at 12:42

-1

Change entry.title in:

div.appendChild(document.createTextNode(entry.title));

to entry.description.

answered Feb 26 '12 at 12:42

conrad10781

2,223
19
17

the description variable is undefined. – Yves Lange Feb 26 '12 at 12:48

How to get the description of a news Item from GOOGLE AJAX Feed API

4 Answers4