====== Python Project - Create RSS feed of CSSE Dept. News ======

Due: Fri, 3/9, 6pm

===== Description =====

This is a group project. Write a Python script, //cssenewsfeed.py//, to create a [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RSS_(file_format) | RSS feed]] of the news items at http://www.monmouth.edu/academics/CSSE/news.asp

Provide the following:

  * The //cssenewsfeed.py// script
    * Use a [[http://docs.python.org/library/|Python package]] to retrieve the html code at http://www.monmouth.edu/academics/CSSE/news.asp.
    * Write the RSS feed XML file, //cssenews.rss.xml//, to disk.
      * A good location is in ~/public_html, so that it can be published to the Web.
      * //cssenews.rss.xml// will consist of the news headlines and url links to the corresponding sections of the CSSE department news page.
        * Example:  If the headline //"Departments of Computer Science and Software Engineering Merged"// is chosen, the corresponding URL is http://www.monmouth.edu/academics/CSSE/news.asp#CSSEMerger .

  * A URL at which your RSS feed can be tested:
    * Example:  http://rockhopper.monmouth.edu/~jchung/cssenews.rss.xml

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===== Notes =====

Use http://feedvalidator.org to validate your RSS feed.

The screen-scraping routines used in [[python_exercises#exercise_9_-_regular_expressions_html_parsing|Python exercise 9]] should be helpful for this project.

In //cssenews.rss.xml//, you may use either empty article descriptions, or extract the first two sentences of each news article and use that as a description.

As of 2/26/2012, there are 28 articles in http://www.monmouth.edu/academics/CSSE/news.asp .

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