Slapdash - Putting feeds on your page the easy way

I wanted to read RSS into a DataSet but found that when loading the XML from, for example, a community server feed I would often get a 'column already exists'. This was because the feed used namespaces which causes elements to be declared like this: <slash:comment>

There are two solutions to this. First, write an XSLT to parse out the stuff I don't want. Second, run over the raw XML myself and filter it. I wanted to go with the second, because writing XSLT for every customised RSS, ATOM, etc feed that my front end developers might want to use didn't appeal - I just wanted to be able to load the RSS into a DataSet. However, then I found some code which seemed to work: http://www.aspcode.net/Updated-RSS-reader-class-dealing-with-already-belongs-error.aspx

The one problem I had was that the code did not seem to know when an element like <enclosure/> did not have a closing tag following it. I have fixed this code and present it below. I have used it to load the header information and each item entry in the RSS feed into a couple of repeaters, for quick databinding, so that I can provide a simple data layout for my front end designer to work with. He can then style this anyway he likes and I can even wrap the items table in a DataView to sort and filter it by any combination of fields in the feed. Of course, because this uses a DataSet, I could even merge other feeds into it.

Many thanks to, er, admin(?), for writing the original - you really have helped me a lot!...

    protected void Page_Load(object sender, EventArgs e)
   {
       DataSet set = new DataSet();
       XmlTextReader xmlRdr = new XmlTextReader("http://stuff.tv/blogs/cool/rss.aspx");
       XmlDocument doc = new XmlDocument();
       doc.Load(xmlRdr);

       set = GetRSSDataSet("http://stuff.tv/blogs/cool/rss.aspx");

       headerRepeater.DataSource = set.Tables[1];
       itemsRepeater.DataSource = set.Tables[2];

       DataBind();
   }

   public DataSet GetRSSDataSet(string m_strAdress)
   {
       DataSet m_ds = new DataSet();

       System.Xml.XmlTextReader oXml = new System.Xml.XmlTextReader(m_strAdress);
       oXml.WhitespaceHandling = System.Xml.WhitespaceHandling.None;
       System.Text.StringBuilder oBuilder = new StringBuilder();

       bool fContinue = oXml.Read();
       while (fContinue)
       {
           string sName = oXml.Name.Replace(":", "_");
           bool isClosed = oXml.IsEmptyElement;
           if (oXml.NodeType == System.Xml.XmlNodeType.Element)
           {
               //Add the element...
               oBuilder.Append("<" + sName);
               if (oXml.HasAttributes)
               {
                   while (oXml.MoveToNextAttribute())
                   {
                       sName = oXml.Name.Replace(":", "_");
                       oBuilder.AppendFormat(" " + sName + "=\"" + oXml.Value + "\"");
                   }
               }
               if (isClosed)
                   oBuilder.Append("/");
               oBuilder.Append(">");
           }
           else if (oXml.NodeType == System.Xml.XmlNodeType.Text)
           {
               oBuilder.Append(System.Web.HttpUtility.HtmlEncode(oXml.Value));
           }
           else if (oXml.NodeType == System.Xml.XmlNodeType.EndElement)
           {
               oBuilder.Append("</" + sName + ">");
           }

           fContinue = oXml.Read();
       }
       oXml.Close();

       string sXmlResult = oBuilder.ToString();


       m_ds = new DataSet();
       System.IO.StringReader oStringReader = new System.IO.StringReader(sXmlResult);
       try
       {
           m_ds.ReadXml(oStringReader, System.Data.XmlReadMode.Auto);
       }
       catch (Exception ex)
       {
           m_ds = null;
       }
       if (oStringReader != null)
           oStringReader.Close();
       if (oXml != null)
           oXml.Close();
       return m_ds.Tables.Count == 0 ? null : m_ds;
   }

 [EDIT: 2008-06-20] I have a .NET3.5 new and improved version of this, which allows multiple feeds and optional sorting - I'll post this later.

[EDIT: 2009-02-19] Sorry for not having posted the replacement of this code.  I will, when I find it.  A lot has happened since the original posting.