---
name: "XML::RSSLite"
section: "3pm"
platform: "linux"
package: "perl-xml-rsslite"
version: "0.17-2"
release: "Arch Linux 2026-11-01"
platforms: ["linux"]
url: "https://new.carta.tech/XML::RSSLite"
---

# XML::RSSLite(3pm)

lightweight, "relaxed" RSS (and XML-ish) parser

## NAME

XML::RSSLite - lightweight, "relaxed" RSS (and XML-ish) parser

## SYNOPSIS

```
  use XML::RSSLite;
  parseRSS(\%result, \$content);
  print "=== Channel ===\n",
        "Title: $result{'title'}\n",
        "Desc:  $result{'description'}\n",
        "Link:  $result{'link'}\n\n";
  foreach $item (@{$result{'items'}}) {
  print "  --- Item ---\n",
        "  Title: $item->{'title'}\n",
        "  Desc:  $item->{'description'}\n",
        "  Link:  $item->{'link'}\n\n";
  }
```

## DESCRIPTION

This module attempts to extract the maximum amount of content from available documents, and is less concerned with XML compliance than alternatives. Rather than rely on XML::Parser, it uses heuristics and good old-fashioned Perl regular expressions. It stores the data in a simple hash structure, and "aliases" certain tags so that when done, you can count on having the minimal data necessary for re-constructing a valid RSS file. This means you get the basic title, description, and link for a channel and its items.

This module extracts more usable links by parsing "scriptingNews" and "weblog" formats in addition to RDF & RSS. It also "sanitizes" the output for best results. The munging includes:

- Remove html tags to leave plain text

  - Remove leading whitespace from URIs

  - By defaul strips characters except 0-9~!@#$%^&\*()-+=a-zA-Z\[\];',.:"\<\>?\\s

  - Use \<url\> tags when \<link\> is empty

  - Use misplaced urls in \<title\> when \<link\> is empty

  - Exract links from \<a href=...\> if required

  - Limit links to ftp and http(s)

  - Join relative item urls (beginning with / or #) to the site base

  ### EXPORT

- parseRSS($outHashRef, $inScalarRef, \[$strip\])

  - inScalarRef - required

    Reference to a scalar containing the document to be parsed. NOTE: The contents will effectively be destroyed. Make a deep copy first if you care.

  - outHashRef - required

    Reference to the hash within which to store the parsed content.

  - strip - optional

    An expression indicating the level of winnowing to be performed on the characters permitted in the results.

    - 1 strip non-printable characters

      - 0 no characters are removed

      - undefined (Default) strip everything but:

      0-9~!@#$%^&\*()-+= a-zA-Z\[\];',.:"\<\>?\\t\\n

### EXPORTABLE

- parseXML(\\%parsedTree, \\$parseThis, 'topTag', $comments);

  - parsedTree - required

    Reference to hash to store the parsed document within.

  - parseThis - required

    Reference to scalar containing the document to parse.

  - topTag - optional

    Tag to consider the root node, leaving this undefined is not recommended.

  - comments - optional

    - false will remove contents from parseThis

      - true will not remove comments from parseThis

      - array reference is true, comments are stored here

      ### CAVEATS

This is not a conforming parser. It does not handle the following

- •

  ```
    <foo bar=">">
  ```

- •

  ```
    <foo><bar> <bar></bar> <bar></bar> </bar></foo>
  ```

- •

  ```
    <![CDATA[ ]]>
  ```

- •

  ```
    PI
  ```

It's non-validating, without a DTD the following cannot be properly addressed

- entities

  - namespaces

  This may or may not be arriving in some future release.

## SEE ALSO

[**perl**(1)](/perl/1.md), `"XML::RSS"`, `"XML::SAX::PurePerl"`, `"XML::Parser::Lite"`, \<XML::Parser\>

## AUTHOR

Jerrad Pierce \<jpierce@cpan.org\>.

Scott Thomason \<scott@thomasons.org\>

## LICENSE

Portions Copyright (c) 2002,2003,2009 Jerrad Pierce, (c) 2000 Scott Thomason. All rights reserved. This program is free software; you can redistribute it  and/or modify it under the same terms as Perl itself.

## POD ERRORS

Hey! **The above document had some coding errors, which are explained below:**

- Around line 480:

  \=back without =over