Integration of news from RSS/XML files

The Online Trader can display news from RSS/XML files. To make a news feed available, the format should follow the xml syntax described in the following link: www.infront.no/newsexample/news-example.xml.

It is important that any special characters are encoded correctly, either by using xml escape codes or better, like it is done in the example link above, by enclosing the data in CDATA sections. The reason the CDATA section is used for the url element in the example, is that the character &, is reserved by xml. If you are not sure whether your elements will ever contain characters reserved by xml, it is safer to include the element in a CDATA section. You can read more about the CDATA sections here. For in-depth information on xml, this is a good starting page. 

Mapping of news to symbols

The ticker or ISIN element is used to link a news story to a symbols. Currently all the ticker codes must refer to the same symbols as from the exchange, since Infront configures which underlying feed the news feed refers to when we add the news feed to The Online Trader.

Exampel file

The xml file containing the news must be put in a place on the internet available to Infront, specified through a URL. The URL must stay the same, as this is a one-time configuration in our system. An example of such a url is, indeed: www.infront.no/newsexample/news-example.xml  

An easy way to verify that an xml file is valid is by opening it in internet explorer. Opening the following file in internet explorer for example should cause it to complain about invalid xml format: www.infront.no/newsexample/illegal-news-example.xml