RSS Feeds

There are more research papers being published than we could ever consume. This RSS Reader gathers the arXiv papers published today and allows us to search through by keywords.

Inspired by an article from InfoWorld (Machlis 2022). Future feads will include more research papers from platforms into a database allowing for a more thorough historical search.

# setup includes libraries and functions

source("RSS_functions.R",chdir=T)

Content of RSS_functions.R script

# get path to script
pathway <- here::here("posts","RSS_Reader", "RSS_functions.R")

# generate output of lines from script

lines <- readLines(pathway, warn=FALSE)
cat(lines, sep = "\n")

# Get the most recent papers function

# Required Libraries

suppressPackageStartupMessages(library(tidyverse))
suppressPackageStartupMessages(library(dplyr))
library(DT)
library(tidyRSS)

most_recent_test <- function(source) {
  
  site=source
  
  my_feed_data <- tidyfeed(site) |>
    select(feed_pub_date,item_title, item_link, item_description)
  
  my_feed_data_summary <- my_feed_data |>
    select(item_title, feed_pub_date, item_link,
           item_description) 
  
  #changed item_title to item_desc
  my_rss_feed <- my_feed_data_summary |> mutate(
    item_title = str_glue("<a target='_blank' title='{item_title}' href='{item_link}' rel='noopener'>{item_title}</a>")
  )
  
  my_rss_feed_table <- my_rss_feed |> select(-item_link)
  #my_feed_data_summary
  
  
  return(my_rss_feed_table)  
}

most_recent <- function(source) {
  tryCatch({
    site <- source
    my_feed_data <- tidyfeed(site) |>
      select(feed_pub_date, item_title, item_link, item_description)
    
    my_feed_data_summary <- my_feed_data |>
      select(item_title, feed_pub_date, item_link, item_description) 
    
    my_rss_feed <- my_feed_data_summary |> mutate(
      item_title = str_glue("<a target='_blank' title='{item_title}' href='{item_link}' rel='noopener'>{item_title}</a>")
    )
    
    # Return only the most recent record
    my_rss_feed_table <- my_rss_feed |> 
      arrange(desc(feed_pub_date)) |> 
      #slice(1) |>
      select(-item_link)
    
    return(my_rss_feed_table)
  }, error = function(e) {
    message("Error fetching or parsing feed: ", e$message)
    #return(NA)
  })
}


#my_rss_feed_table

Getting feed for arXiv and checking the number of results. There are no papers on weekends

flag=0 #Set Error flag to False

# Call functins in RSS_functions.R

my_feed <- "https://rss.arxiv.org/rss/cs.LG"

recent_records<-most_recent(my_feed)

GET request successful. Parsing...

#paste("recent records: ", recent_records)


#print (result_output)

# Sets flag = 1 when no records retrieved

if (is.null(recent_records) || (length(recent_records) == 1 && is.na(recent_records))) {
  flag <- 1
  cat("Sorry, no papers published today\n")
} else {
  cat("Records Retrieved:", nrow(recent_records), "\n")
  flag <- 0
}

Records Retrieved: 249 

cat("flag:", flag, "\n")

flag: 0 

Creating output using DT library

if (!flag) {
  DT::datatable(recent_records, filter = 'top', escape = FALSE, rownames = FALSE,
    options = list(
    search = list(regex = TRUE, caseInsensitive = TRUE),  
    pageLength = 10,
    lengthMenu = c(10, 25, 50, 100, 200),
    autowidth = TRUE,
   columnDefs = list(list(width = '80%', targets = list(2)))
    )
  )}

References

Machlis, Sharon. 2022. “How to Create Your Own RSS Reader with r _ InfoWorld.” InfoWorld, December. https://www.infoworld.com/article/2337738/how-to-create-your-own-rss-reader-with-r.html.