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RSS FAQs - Atom Feed Introduction and File Generation

By: FYIcenter.com

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A collection of 16 FAQs on Atom feed file standard. Clear answers are provided with tutorial samples on introduction to Atom feed file standard; various ways to generate Atom feeds; linking Atom feeds to Web pages. Topics included in this collection are:

  1. What Is Atom 1.0 Standard?
  2. What Is the Relation between Atom and XML?
  3. What Are the Main Differences between Atom 1.0 and RSS 2.0?
  4. What Is the Icon for Atom Syndication?
  5. What Is the MIME Type Definition for Atom Files?
  6. What Is an Atom Syndication Feed?
  7. How To Write a Minimum Atom 1.0 Feed File?
  8. How To Validate an Atom 1.0 Feed File?
  9. How To Use w3.org Feed Validation Service?
  10. What Happens If Your Atom Feed Fails the Validation?
  11. Is There Any DTD File to Validate Atom Feed Files?
  12. Is There Any XSD File to Validate Atom Feed Files?
  13. How To Create Atom Feed Files?
  14. How To Tell Visitors That You Have Atom Syndication Feeds?
  15. How To Tell Web Browsers That Your Web Pages Have Atom Feeds?
  16. What Happens When FireFox Knows a Web Page Has Atom Feeds?

What Is Atom 1.0 Standard?

Atom is an XML-based document format that describes lists of related information known as "feeds". Feeds are composed of a number of items, known as "entries", each with an extensible set of attached metadata. For example, each entry has a title.

The current version of Atom is Atom 1.0. For more information, please visit http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc4287.txt.

What Is the Relation between Atom and XML?

XML (Extensible Markup Language) is a generic markup language to organize generic information into a structured document with embedded tags.

Atom is an extension of XML designed to organize headlines of news or summaries of Web pages to feed to news aggregators.

For more information on XML, please visit http://www.w3.org/XML/.

What Are the Main Differences between Atom 1.0 and RSS 2.0?

Main differences between Atom 1.0 and RSS 2.0:

  • Atom has separate "summary" and "content" elements, while RSS only has one "description" element.
  • Atom standardizes auto-discovery in contrast to the many non-standard variants used with RSS 2.0.
  • In Atom, it is mandatory that each entry have a globally unique ID, which is important for reliable updating of entries.
  • Atom 1.0 allows standalone Atom Entry documents whereas with RSS 2.0 only full feed documents are supported.
  • Atom specifies that dates be in the format described in RFC 3339. The date format in RSS 2.0 was underspecified and has led to many different formats being used.

What Is the Icon for Atom Syndication?

The Web browser and Website syndication industry has adopted a standard icon to identify syndicated content as shown below:
            Syndication Feed Icon

What Is the MIME Type Definition for Atom Files?

Atom files have its own MIME type definition as:

  • MIME type: application/atom+xml
  • File extension: .atom, .xml
  • Type of format: Syndication
  • Extended from: XML

What Is an Atom Syndication Feed?

An Atom Syndication feed is just a file that:

  • Is generated statically or dynamically.
  • Has an accessible URL.
  • Confirms with Atom standard.
  • Contains headlines or summaries of an entire Website, a Website section, or a single Web page.

(Continued on next part...)

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