What Is the Atom Document Structure?

An Atom feed document must have a root element called "feed". Within in the "feed" element, one or more "entry" elements are enclosed. The high level structure of an Atom feed document looks like:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<feed xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2005/Atom">
   <title>...</title>
   <link href="..."/>
   <updated>...</updated>
   <author>
      <name>...</name>
   </author>
   <id>...</id>
   <entry>
      <title>...</title>
      <link href="..."/>
      <id>...</id>
      <updated>...</updated>
      <summary>...</summary>
   </entry>
   <entry>
      ...
   </entry>
   ...
</feed>

As you can see, an Atom XML document can be described as:

• An RSS XML document has root element called "feed".
• The "feed" root element contains some sub elements describing this feed.
• The "feed" root element contains multiple "entry" sub elements
• Each "entry" sub element represents a single feed entry.
• The "entry" sub element several sub elements describing this feed entry.

⇒Atom Specification - RFC 4287

⇒⇒RSS FAQ and Tutorials