RSS channel Element

## RSS Basic

RSS Home RSS Introduction RSS History RSS Syntax RSS <channel> RSS <item> RSS Publish Feed RSS Read a Feed

## RSS Examples

RSS Examples

## RSS Reference

RSS Reference

# RSS <channel> Element

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The RSS <channel> element describes the RSS feed.

## The RSS <channel> Element

Look at the following RSS document:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="ISO-8859-1" ?>
<rss version="2.0">
<channel>
<title>W3Schools Home Page</title>
<link>http://www.w3schools.com</link>
<description>Free web building tutorials</description>
<item>
<title>RSS Tutorial</title>
<link>http://www.w3schools.com/rss</link>
<description>New RSS tutorial on W3Schools</description>
</item>
</channel>
</rss>

As mentioned before, the <channel> element describes the RSS feed, and has three required child elements:

- <title> - Defines the title of the channel (e.g. W3Schools Home Page)
- <link> - Defines the hyperlink to the channel (e.g. http://www.w3schools.com)
- <description> - Describes the channel (e.g. Free web building tutorials)

The <channel> element usually contains one or more <item> elements. Each <item> element defines an article or "story" in the RSS feed.

Furthermore, there are several optional child elements of <channel>. We will explain the most important ones below.

## The <category> Element

The <category> child element is used to specify a category for your feed.

The <category> element makes it possible for RSS aggregators to group sites based on category.

The category for the RSS document above could be:

<category>Web development</category>

## The <copyright> Element

The <copyright> child element notifies about copyrighted material.

The copyright for the RSS document above could be:

<copyright>2006 Refsnes Data as. All rights reserved.</copyright>

## The <image> Element

The <image> child element allows an image to be displayed when aggregators present a feed.

The <image> element has three required child elements:

- <url> - Defines the URL to the image
- <title> - Defines the text to display if the image could not be shown
- <link> - Defines the hyperlink to the website that offers the channel

The image for the RSS document above could be:

<image>
<url>http://www.w3schools.com/images/logo.gif</url>
<title>W3Schools.com</title>
<link>http://www.w3schools.com</link>
</image>

## The <language> Element

The <language> child element is used to specify the language used to write your document.

The <language> element makes it possible for RSS aggregators to group sites based on language.

The language for the RSS document above could be:

<language>en-us</language>

## RSS <channel> Reference

Element | Description
--- | ---
<category> | Optional. Defines one or more categories for the feed
<cloud> | Optional. Register processes to be notified immediately of updates of the feed
<copyright> | Optional. Notifies about copyrighted material
<description> | Required. Describes the channel
<docs> | Optional. Specifies an URL to the documentation of the format used in the feed
<generator> | Optional. Specifies the program used to generate the feed
<image> | Optional. Allows an image to be displayed when aggregators present a feed
<language> | Optional. Specifies the language the feed is written in
<lastBuildDate> | Optional. Defines the last-modified date of the content of the feed
<link> | Required. Defines the hyperlink to the channel
<managingEditor> | Optional. Defines the e-mail address to the editor of the content of the feed
<pubDate> | Optional. Defines the last publication date for the content of the feed
<rating> | Optional. The PICS rating of the feed
<skipDays> | Optional. Specifies the days where aggregators should skip updating the feed
<skipHours> | Optional. Specifies the hours where aggregators should skip updating the feed
<textInput> | Optional. Specifies a text input field that should be displayed with the feed
<title> | Required. Defines the title of the channel
<ttl> | Optional. Specifies the number of minutes the feed can stay cached before refreshing it from the source
<webMaster> | Optional. Defines the e-mail address to the webmaster of the feed

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