Then I copied another version of the rss.jsp file that I already had around so that I had the base of RSS without having to go through the work of looking up the spec again. I explored the Jive KB SQL for a bit and figured out the best query, then popped it in the top, changed some of the references below and posted it. And of course it didn't work the first time. So I went back and checked my libraries and messed with things a bit to get it to work (adding in the .tld's though I shouldn't have had to), screwing up the server in the process causing me to have to reboot like 10 times. But in the end it just worked. I know that sounds nuts, but the idea is that once the libraries are installed correctly, the page is dead-simple to put together. Here's what it looks like:

<% out.write("<?xml version=\"1.0\" encoding=\"UTF-8\"?>"); %>
<%@ page contentType="text/xml;charset=UTF-8"%>
<%@ taglib prefix="c" uri="http://java.sun.com/jsp/jstl/core" %>
<%@ taglib prefix="sql" uri="http://java.sun.com/jsp/jstl/sql" %>
<%@ taglib prefix="x" uri="http://java.sun.com/jsp/jstl/xml" %>
<%@ taglib prefix="fmt" uri="http://java.sun.com/jsp/jstl/fmt" %>

<fmt:setTimeZone value="GMT-9" var="tz"/>

<sql:setDataSource dataSource="jdbc/JiveKbDb" />

<sql:query var="entries" maxRows="30">
	select jiveKbEntry.*, jiveKbPart.body, jiveUser.name as author
	from jiveKbEntry, jiveKbEntryPart, jiveKbPart, jiveUser
	where jiveKbEntry.entryId = jiveKbEntryPart.entryId
	and jiveKbEntryPart.partId = jiveKbPart.partId
	and jiveKbEntry.userID = jiveUser.userID
	order by creationDate desc
</sql:query>


<rss version="2.0">

<channel>
	<title>MobKnowledge</title>
	<link>http://www.mobknowledge.com</link>
	<description>Open Mobile Knowledge Base</description>
	<language>en</language>
	<managingEditor>russ@russellbeattie.com</managingEditor>
	<webMaster>russ@russellbeattie.com</webMaster>
	<image>
		<url>http://www.mobknowledge.com/images/mobknowledge.gif</url>
		<title>MobKnowledge</title>
		<link>http://www.mobknowledge.com</link>
		<width>300</width>
		<height>60</height>
	</image>

<c:forEach var="row" items="${entries.rows}">
	<item>
		<title><c:out value="${row.title}" escapeXml="true"/></title>
		<link>http://www.mobknowledge.com/entry.jspa?entryID=<c:out value="${row.externalID}"/></link>
		<description><c:out value="${row.body}" escapeXml="true"/></description>
		<author><c:out value="${row.author}"/></author>
		<guid isPermalink="false"><c:out value="${row.externalID}"/></guid>
	</item>
</c:forEach>

</channel>
</rss>

The "right" way, by the way, to do this would've been to integrate with WebWork another script and all that. But JSTL is just such a low-hanging fruit that I went with it. There are sooo many times when having an action in front of your query is just overkill.

Hmmm. So if you add this write up to the dev time, I just spent an hour messing with that site. Wasn't the idea that I wasn't going to do that? ;-)

-Russ

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