Batching and OPML

Just a couple of new features added this week, but these are potentially useful for integration with other systems.

Batch API

This allows a number of API calls to be submitted at the same time and executed in a single network roundtrip. All of the requested API calls are executed together, and if one of them fails, any changes for the whole batch is rolled-back so there will be no impact.

Documentation for the Batch API is here.

OPML APIs

The standard for import/export for podcast and RSS apps is OPML. Feeddirectory.org now has import and export of OPML files available through an API for subscriptions only. The same level of functionality over the published feeds will be coming soon.

Documentation for the OPML APIs are: here for download and here for upload.

Health checking feeds

It was always the intention with feeddirectory.org to add some value to the URLs that are stored in it. One of these value adds is the ability to report on the health of a feed. This is done by checking each URL that's stored on a regular basis - at most once per day. 

Only very basic checks are performed:

• Get the HTTP response code
• Check the if the XML document is well-formed

This information is then passed back with API calls that return URLs in a feed-health section:

         "feed-health" : {
            "last-status-code" : 200,
            "is-valid-xml" : true,
            "metadata" : {
               "title" : "No Such Thing As A Fish"
            },
            "last-fail-check" : {
               "timestamp" : null,
               "epoch-millis" : null
            },
            "last-good-check" : {
               "timestamp" : "2021-03-03T20:15:18.569+00:00",
               "epoch-millis" : 1614802518569
            },
            "last-checked" : {
               "timestamp" : "2021-03-03T20:15:18.569+00:00",
               "epoch-millis" : 1614802518569
            }
         }

This information will be refreshed regularly. There is no separate API to refresh the health of a URL, they will be refreshed automatically and the updated information returned in subsequent API results.