reader¶

reader is a Python feed reader library.

It aims to allow writing feed reader applications without any business code, and without enforcing a dependency on a particular framework.

Features¶

reader allows you to:

retrieve, store, and manage Atom, RSS, and JSON feeds
mark entries as read or important
add tags and metadata to feeds
filter feeds and articles
full-text search articles
write plugins to extend its functionality
skip all the low level stuff and focus on what makes your feed reader different

…all these with:

a stable, clearly documented API
excellent test coverage
fully typed Python

What reader doesn’t do:

provide an UI
provide a REST API (yet)
depend on a web framework
have an opinion of how/where you use it

The following exist, but are optional (and frankly, a bit unpolished):

a minimal web interface
- that works even with text-only browsers
- with automatic tag fixing for podcasts (MP3 enclosures)
a command-line interface

Quickstart¶

What does it look like? Here is an example of reader in use:

$ pip install reader[search]

>>> from reader import make_reader
>>>
>>> reader = make_reader('db.sqlite')
>>> reader.add_feed('http://www.hellointernet.fm/podcast?format=rss')
>>> reader.update_feeds()
>>>
>>> entries = list(reader.get_entries())
>>> [e.title for e in entries]
['H.I. #108: Project Cyclops', 'H.I. #107: One Year of Weird', ...]
>>>
>>> reader.mark_as_read(entries[0])
>>>
>>> [e.title for e in reader.get_entries(read=False)]
['H.I. #107: One Year of Weird', 'H.I. #106: Water on Mars', ...]
>>> [e.title for e in reader.get_entries(read=True)]
['H.I. #108: Project Cyclops']
>>>
>>> reader.enable_search()
>>> reader.update_search()
>>>
>>> for e in list(reader.search_entries('year'))[:3]:
...     title = e.metadata.get('.title')
...     print(title.value, title.highlights)
...
H.I. #107: One Year of Weird (slice(15, 19, None),)
H.I. #52: 20,000 Years of Torment (slice(17, 22, None),)
H.I. #83: The Best Kind of Prison ()

User guide¶

This part of the documentation guides you through all of the library’s usage patterns.

API reference¶

If you are looking for information on a specific function, class, or method, this part of the documentation is for you.

API reference

Unstable features¶

The following are optional features that are still being worked on. They may become their own packages, get merged into the main library, or be removed in the future.

Project information¶

reader is released under the BSD license, its documentation lives at Read the Docs, the code on GitHub, and the latest release on PyPI. It is rigorously tested on Python 3.7+ and PyPy.