[Blog] Add an RSS feed

composer.json

@@ -9,6 +9,7 @@
 	},
 	"require-dev": {
 		"danielescherzer/common-phpcs": "0.0.2",
+		"laminas/laminas-feed": "2.26.1",
 		"phpunit/phpunit": "~12.0",
 		"php-parallel-lint/php-parallel-lint": "^1.4",
 		"samdark/sitemap": "2.4.1"

sitemap.xml

@@ -93,4 +93,7 @@
  <url>
   <loc>https://scherzer.dev/Blog/20260510-release-manager-notes-2</loc>
  </url>
+ <url>
+  <loc>https://scherzer.dev/Blog/20260517-blog-rss</loc>
+ </url>
 </urlset>

src/Blog/feed-rss.xml

@@ -0,0 +1,135 @@
+<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
+<rss version="2.0">
+  <channel>
+    <title>Daniel Scherzer's Blog</title>
+    <description>Entries from Daniel Scherzer' personal blog</description>
+    <pubDate>Sun, 17 May 2026 00:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
+    <generator>https://github.com/DanielEScherzer/website-content</generator>
+    <link>https://scherzer.dev/Blog</link>
+    <item>
+      <title>Blog RSS Feed</title>
+      <pubDate>Sun, 17 May 2026 00:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
+      <link>https://scherzer.dev/Blog/20260517-blog-rss</link>
+    </item>
+    <item>
+      <title>Notes for PHP Release Managers, Part 2</title>
+      <pubDate>Sun, 10 May 2026 00:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
+      <link>https://scherzer.dev/Blog/20260510-release-manager-notes-2</link>
+    </item>
+    <item>
+      <title>The Story of PHP 8.5.6 Release Candidate 3</title>
+      <pubDate>Thu, 30 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
+      <link>https://scherzer.dev/Blog/20260430-php856-rc-3</link>
+    </item>
+    <item>
+      <title>PHP 8.6 Release Manager</title>
+      <pubDate>Thu, 16 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
+      <link>https://scherzer.dev/Blog/20260416-php86-release-manager</link>
+    </item>
+    <item>
+      <title>Introducing define_deprecated() for PHP</title>
+      <pubDate>Fri, 10 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
+      <link>https://scherzer.dev/Blog/20260410-define-deprecated</link>
+    </item>
+    <item>
+      <title>Friends in PHP</title>
+      <pubDate>Mon, 09 Mar 2026 00:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
+      <link>https://scherzer.dev/Blog/20260309-php-friends</link>
+    </item>
+    <item>
+      <title>ConFoo 2026</title>
+      <pubDate>Mon, 02 Mar 2026 00:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
+      <link>https://scherzer.dev/Blog/20260302-confoo</link>
+    </item>
+    <item>
+      <title>Notes for PHP Release Managers</title>
+      <pubDate>Wed, 18 Feb 2026 00:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
+      <link>https://scherzer.dev/Blog/20260218-release-manager-notes</link>
+    </item>
+    <item>
+      <title>This Year in PHP (2025)</title>
+      <pubDate>Tue, 20 Jan 2026 00:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
+      <link>https://scherzer.dev/Blog/20260120-php-2025</link>
+    </item>
+    <item>
+      <title>Project Euler in Rust, Part 2</title>
+      <pubDate>Mon, 01 Dec 2025 00:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
+      <link>https://scherzer.dev/Blog/20251201-rust-euler-2</link>
+    </item>
+    <item>
+      <title>Unplanned Downtime, November 2025</title>
+      <pubDate>Tue, 25 Nov 2025 00:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
+      <link>https://scherzer.dev/Blog/20251125-unplanned-downtime</link>
+    </item>
+    <item>
+      <title>MergePHP, November 2025</title>
+      <pubDate>Tue, 18 Nov 2025 00:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
+      <link>https://scherzer.dev/Blog/20251118-mergephp-talk</link>
+    </item>
+    <item>
+      <title>The Story of PHP 8.5.0 Release Candidate 5</title>
+      <pubDate>Thu, 13 Nov 2025 00:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
+      <link>https://scherzer.dev/Blog/20251113-release-candidate-5</link>
+    </item>
+    <item>
+      <title>Longhorn PHP 2025</title>
+      <pubDate>Wed, 29 Oct 2025 00:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
+      <link>https://scherzer.dev/Blog/20251029-longhorn-php</link>
+    </item>
+    <item>
+      <title>Project Euler in Rust</title>
+      <pubDate>Fri, 19 Sep 2025 00:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
+      <link>https://scherzer.dev/Blog/20250919-rust-euler</link>
+    </item>
+    <item>
+      <title>"Hello, World!" in Rust</title>
+      <pubDate>Fri, 12 Sep 2025 00:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
+      <link>https://scherzer.dev/Blog/20250912-hello-world-rust</link>
+    </item>
+    <item>
+      <title>First Rust Patch</title>
+      <pubDate>Sat, 06 Sep 2025 00:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
+      <link>https://scherzer.dev/Blog/20250906-mago-rust</link>
+    </item>
+    <item>
+      <title>Out-of-Band Signaling</title>
+      <pubDate>Fri, 29 Aug 2025 00:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
+      <link>https://scherzer.dev/Blog/20250829-out-of-band</link>
+    </item>
+    <item>
+      <title>#[\DelayedTargetValidation] Attribute Explained</title>
+      <pubDate>Wed, 20 Aug 2025 00:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
+      <link>https://scherzer.dev/Blog/20250820-delayed-target-validation</link>
+    </item>
+    <item>
+      <title>No PHP 8.5.0alpha3</title>
+      <pubDate>Fri, 01 Aug 2025 00:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
+      <link>https://scherzer.dev/Blog/20250801-no-alpha-3</link>
+    </item>
+    <item>
+      <title>Pygments Syntax Highlighting for Markdown</title>
+      <pubDate>Fri, 18 Jul 2025 00:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
+      <link>https://scherzer.dev/Blog/20250718-pygments-highlighting</link>
+    </item>
+    <item>
+      <title>A Tale of Two RFCs</title>
+      <pubDate>Sun, 22 Jun 2025 00:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
+      <link>https://scherzer.dev/Blog/20250622-two-rfcs</link>
+    </item>
+    <item>
+      <title>Attributes on Constants</title>
+      <pubDate>Tue, 29 Apr 2025 00:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
+      <link>https://scherzer.dev/Blog/20250429-attributes-on-constants</link>
+    </item>
+    <item>
+      <title>PHP 8.5 Release Manager</title>
+      <pubDate>Thu, 17 Apr 2025 00:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
+      <link>https://scherzer.dev/Blog/20250417-php85-release-manager</link>
+    </item>
+    <item>
+      <title>Website Launch</title>
+      <pubDate>Wed, 09 Apr 2025 00:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
+      <link>https://scherzer.dev/Blog/20250409-website-launch</link>
+    </item>
+  </channel>
+</rss>

src/Blog/posts/20260517-blog-rss.md

@@ -0,0 +1,95 @@
+---
+title: Blog RSS Feed
+extensions:
+  pygments: true
+---
+
+# Blog RSS Feed
+
+Last month, I received [a request][rss-req] to add an RSS feed to my blog. I am
+happy to share that I have added such a feed, available at
+[/Blog/feed/rss.xml][rss-link].
+
+RSS (short for "Really Simple Syndication") is a web feed specification built on
+top of XML. Rather than generating the XML entirely from scratch (potentially
+using the PHP dom extension), I opted to use an open source library,
+[laminas/laminas-feed][pgk-laminas], to create the XML content. While the
+library certainly helped, I ran into a few challenges along the way.
+
+## Laminas package
+
+The first was the fact that the library unconditionally enables a "Slash"
+extension which adds some extra elements to the output. Rather than manually
+removing those elements from the resulting XML, I wanted to work within the
+constraints of the library API. The result? A custom extension manager that
+behaves differently based on the backtrace. The Laminas package still believes
+that the extension exists, but the slash extension is skipped during
+registration.
+
+```php startinline=True
+$old = Writer::getExtensionManager();
+$manager = new class( $old ) extends ExtensionManager {
+	public function has( $entryName ) {
+		if ( $entryName === 'Slash\Renderer\Entry' ) {
+			// Needs to return true when checking if the extension
+			// exists, otherwise Laminas throws an exception
+			$bt = debug_backtrace( DEBUG_BACKTRACE_IGNORE_ARGS, 2 );
+			if (
+				$bt[1]['class'] === Writer::class
+				&& $bt[1]['function'] === 'hasExtension'
+			) {
+				return true;
+			}
+			return false;
+		}
+		return parent::has( $entryName );
+	}
+};
+Writer::setExtensionManager( $manager );
+```
+
+While I'm not the most pleased with this approach, it does work, and it presents
+a great example for my talk at PHPTek next week about what is and is not part of
+the public API of PHP libraries.
+
+Another issue that I encountered was the unconditional addition of `<guid>` tags
+in the output - for these, I just removed them from the XML result with a
+post-processing step.
+
+Of course, I could have used another library, or forked the Laminas package,
+but the Laminas package seemed like the easiest to use.
+
+## Forward compatibility
+
+I had initially planned for the RSS feed to live at `.../Blog/rss.xml`, but
+realized that I might want to support other feed formats (e.g. Atom) in the
+future. To keep all feeds organized together, I put the RSS feed at
+`.../Blog/feed/rss.xml`, allowing other feeds to be added more easily. If you
+visit the feed page without specifying a feed format ([/Blog/feed][feeds-link]),
+a list of available feeds is shown; it is also shown when an unknown feed is
+requested.
+
+## Caching
+
+Rather than regenerating the RSS feed on every request, I generate it ahead of
+time and store the resulting XML in my website's git repository. At runtime, the
+cached file is simply read from disk. Tests exist to ensure that the cached
+version remains up-to-date.
+
+Thinking about this further, the same approach could be taken to every other
+known page on my website. Other than HTTP 404 and 405 pages that depend on
+what path or method were used, the rest of my pages are static and could be
+similarly cached. If performance ever becomes a concern, I may extend the same
+approach to the rest of the site.
+
+## Field testing
+
+This blog post was published at the same time the RSS feed was created, so it
+does not serve as a test of the feed working properly. After PHPTek next week,
+I plan to write up another post about my experiences there, which will serve as
+a great opportunity to confirm that the RSS feed behaves as expected.
+
+[feeds-link]: /Blog/feed
+[pgk-laminas]: https://packagist.org/packages/laminas/laminas-feed
+[rss-link]: /Blog/feed/rss.xml
+[rss-req]: https://github.com/DanielEScherzer/website-content/issues/79

src/Pages/BlogFeedPage.php

@@ -0,0 +1,86 @@
+<?php
+declare( strict_types = 1 );
+
+namespace DanielWebsite\Pages;
+
+use DanielEScherzer\HTMLBuilder\FluentHTML;
+use DanielWebsite\WebResponse;
+
+class BlogFeedPage extends BasePage {
+
+	private ?string $feedName;
+
+	public function __construct( array $params ) {
+		parent::__construct();
+		$this->feedName = $params['feed'] ?? null;
+		$this->head->append(
+			FluentHTML::fromTag( 'title' )->addChild( 'Blog feeds' )
+		);
+	}
+
+	public function getResponse(): WebResponse {
+		if ( $this->feedName === 'rss.xml' ) {
+			// Bypass BasePage handling and return raw xml
+			$content = file_get_contents( dirname( __DIR__ ) . '/Blog/feed-rss.xml' );
+			return new WebResponse(
+				$content,
+				[ 'Content-Type: application/xml' ],
+				200
+			);
+		}
+		return parent::getResponse();
+	}
+
+	protected function build(): void {
+		if ( $this->feedName === 'rss.xml' ) {
+			return;
+		}
+		if ( $this->feedName !== null ) {
+			$this->addStyleSheet( 'error-styles.css' );
+			$feed = $this->feedName;
+			$this->contentWrapper->append(
+				FluentHTML::make(
+					'div',
+					[ 'class' => 'error-box' ],
+					[
+						FluentHTML::make( 'h1', [], 'Error' ),
+						FluentHTML::make(
+							'p',
+							[],
+							"The requested blog feed `$feed` is not recognized"
+						),
+					]
+				)
+			);
+			$this->setResponseCode( 404 );
+		}
+		$this->contentWrapper->append(
+			FluentHTML::make( 'h1', [], 'Known feed types' ),
+			FluentHTML::make(
+				'ul',
+				[],
+				[
+					FluentHTML::make(
+						'li',
+						[],
+						FluentHTML::make(
+							'a',
+							[ 'href' => '/Blog' ],
+							'HTML index of blog posts'
+						)
+					),
+					FluentHTML::make(
+						'li',
+						[],
+						FluentHTML::make(
+							'a',
+							[ 'href' => '/Blog/feed/rss.xml' ],
+							'RSS feed of blog posts'
+						)
+					),
+				]
+			)
+		);
+	}
+
+}

src/Router.php

@@ -4,6 +4,7 @@
 namespace DanielWebsite;
 
 use DanielWebsite\Pages\AbstractPage;
+use DanielWebsite\Pages\BlogFeedPage;
 use DanielWebsite\Pages\BlogIndexPage;
 use DanielWebsite\Pages\BlogPostPage;
 use DanielWebsite\Pages\Error404Page;
@@ -68,6 +69,8 @@ public static function addRoutesCb( RouteCollector $r ): void {
 		$r->addRoute( 'GET', 'Thesis', ThesisPage::class );
 		$r->addRoute( 'GET', 'Work', WorkPage::class );
 		$r->addRoute( 'GET', 'Blog', BlogIndexPage::class );
+		$r->addRoute( 'GET', 'Blog/feed', BlogFeedPage::class );
+		$r->addRoute( 'GET', 'Blog/feed/{feed}', BlogFeedPage::class );
 		$r->addRoute( 'GET', 'Blog/{slug}', BlogPostPage::class );
 		$r->addRoute( 'GET', 'Tools', ToolPage::class );
 		$r->addRoute( 'GET', 'Tools/{tool}', ToolPage::class );