Content Syndication with RSS

Name

mod_taxonomy

Synopsis

mod_taxonomy allows the classification of objects under a defined taxonomic scheme — basically, you describe the topics of your objects.

The object can be anything: a channel, an item, or a reference from another module. Because of this universality, mod_taxonomy can be used heavily throughout an RSS 1.0 feed, which may cause some confusion. As with many modules, a good bit of reformatting may help clarify things.

The taxonomic definitions are always given as URIs. As shown in Chapter 5, URIs are used, like namespaces, to differentiate between homonyms. Python (the language) and Python (the snake) need to be distinguished, because you may want to run away from one of them.

One good source of taxonomic URIs is the Open Directory Project, at http://www.dmoz.org. All the examples in this section originate from this source.

Namespace

mod_taxonomy takes the stylish moniker of taxo: and the identifying URI of http://purl.org/rss/1.0/modules/taxonomy/. Hence, the lovely root element:

<rdf:RDF xmlns:rdf="http://www.w3.org/1999/02/22-rdf-syntax-ns#" 
  xmlns="http://purl.org/rss/1.0/"
  xmlns:taxo="http://purl.org/rss/1.0/modules/taxonomy/"
>

Elements

mod_taxonomy can be used in two ways: the simple and the more defined. The simple method uses one element, and it can be used as a subelement of item or channel:

<taxo:topics>
<rdf:Bag>
<rdf:li resource="URI TO TAXONOMIC REFERENCE" /
<rdf:li resource="URI TO TAXONOMIC REFERENCE" />
</rdf:Bag>
</taxo:topics>

This nesting ...