Bug#781351: www.debian.org: Please provide "date" field for each item of DPN RSS feed (feedparser complains about that)

[Laura Arjona Reina <larjona@larjona.net>]

Package: www.debian.org
Severity: wishlist
Tags: patch

Dear all
I'm having trouble when using Spigot[1] to publish the DPN feed[2] in Debian's
identi.ca account:

[1] https://pypi.python.org/pypi/spigot/
[2] https://www.debian.org/News/weekly/dwn.en.rdf

Spigot is a Python script using Feedparser. Spigot "needs" a "date" field for
each RSS item, in order to handle publication of only the "new" RSS items each
time.

The Perl script[3] that generates the DPN feed stores the date in the "channel"
section but not in each item.

[3] http://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/webwml/webwml/english/News/weekly/dwn-to-
rdf.pl

Feedparser throws an exception when it does not find the requested field in the
RSS feed, and then, Spigot crashes (I'm attaching the trace).

I've contacted the developer of Spigot in order to get this exception
controlled, but maybe it's convenient to add the date field to each item
anyway?

I'm attaching a patch to the Perl script that generates the RDF feed. My Perl
skills are very very limited so I kindly ask for review, if you consider it's a
good thing to add the date to each item.

Thanks!



-- System Information:
Debian Release: 8.0
  APT prefers testing
  APT policy: (500, 'testing')
Architecture: i386 (i686)

Kernel: Linux 3.16.0-4-686-pae (SMP w/2 CPU cores)
Locale: LANG=es_ES.UTF-8, LC_CTYPE=es_ES.UTF-8 (charmap=UTF-8)
Shell: /bin/sh linked to /bin/dash
Init: systemd (via /run/systemd/system)

2015-03-27 18:30:53,472 DEBUG: Polling feed https://www.debian.org/News/weekly/dwn.en.rdf for new items
2015-03-27 18:30:54,143 DEBUG: Found 9 items in feed https://www.debian.org/News/weekly/dwn.en.rdf
2015-03-27 18:30:54,143 DEBUG:   Processing item 0
2015-03-27 18:30:54,143 DEBUG:     Title: Reports
2015-03-27 18:30:54,143 DEBUG:     Link: https://www.debian.org/News/project/2015/02/index.en.html#reports
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/usr/local/bin/spigot.py", line 541, in <module>
    spigot_feed.poll_feeds()
  File "/usr/local/bin/spigot.py", line 383, in poll_feeds
    self.scan_feed(url)
  File "/usr/local/bin/spigot.py", line 409, in scan_feed
    date = p.entries[i].updated_parsed
  File "/usr/local/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/feedparser.py", line 416, in __getattr__
    raise AttributeError, "object has no attribute '%s'" % key
AttributeError: object has no attribute 'updated_parsed'

--- /home/larjona/Documentos/l10n/Debian/webwml/english/News/weekly/dwn-to-rdf.pl
+++ /home/larjona/Documentos/l10n/Debian/webwml/english/News/weekly/dwn-to-rdf.new.pl
@@ -94,6 +94,7 @@
     my $count = shift;
     my $headline = shift;
     my $body = shift;
+    my $pubdate = shift;
 
     $body =~ s~\$\(HOME\)~https://www.debian.org~g;
     $body =~ s/\\\n//g;
@@ -130,6 +131,9 @@
     $rss->add_item (title       => $headline,
 		    description => $body,
 		    link        => $url.'#'.$count,
+		    dc             => {
+		   	date => $pubdate,
+	       	    },
 		    );
 }
 
@@ -195,10 +199,10 @@
 
 	    if ($name !~ /(newcontributors|rcstats|dsa|nnwp|wnpp|continuedpn)/) {
 		if (!$headline) {
-		    rdf_add ($rss, 'content', $locdesc, $body) if ($count == 0);
+		    rdf_add ($rss, 'content', $locdesc, $body, $pubdate) if ($count == 0);
 		    $count++
 		} else {
-		    rdf_add ($rss, $name, $headline, $body);
+		    rdf_add ($rss, $name, $headline, $body, $pubdate);
 		}
 	    }