RSS

Feed.Rss serializes channel metadata and an items list. The RSS 2.0 specification requires channel title, link, and description. Supply meaningful values: the view's empty defaults do not make an incomplete channel valid.

An item needs a title or description. Use a stable guid, a canonical link, and a publication date when available. pubDate accepts DateTimeInterface, integer Unix timestamps, and parseable date strings, and renders in RSS date format. lastBuildDate uses the same formatting. CakePHP date-only objects are accepted without parsing their localized display strings. Optional values may be null; those elements are omitted. Empty strings and false omit RSS dates.

Fields and shorthands

• link, comments, and image url accept absolute strings, relative paths, or CakePHP URL arrays.
• guid accepts a URL or ['url' => $id, '@isPermaLink' => 'false'] for an opaque identifier.
• category accepts a string, a list, or ['domain' => $url, 'content' => $name].
• source accepts ['url' => $url, 'content' => $name].
• author is an RSS email value. Use dc:creator for a display name.
• content:encoded contains CDATA-wrapped content, including HTML.

Ordinary values are XML-escaped. CDATA preserves markup, so sanitize HTML from untrusted sources before publishing it. XML escaping alone does not make embedded HTML safe in readers.

Namespaces

Built-in prefixes are atom, content, dc, and sy. Used prefixes are declared on the root. Register additional prefixes in the input:

$feed['document']['namespace'] = [
    'itunes' => 'http://www.itunes.com/dtds/podcast-1.0.dtd',
];
$feed['channel']['itunes:author'] = 'Example editor';

You can also call setNamespace($prefix, $uri) on the view. Unknown prefixes raise RuntimeException.

Add a feed self-link with:

$feed['channel']['atom:link'] = ['@href' => 'https://example.org/feeds.rss'];

RSS Atom links default to rel="self" and type="application/rss+xml"; explicitly supplied attributes are preserved.

Enclosures

$feed['items'][0]['enclosure'] = [
    'url' => 'https://example.org/audio/episode.mp3',
    'length' => '12345',
    'type' => 'audio/mpeg',
];

RSS requires URL, byte length, and MIME type. Supply both metadata values for remote media. For relative files inside WWW_ROOT, the view can infer missing values from the file and memoizes its probe. Unresolved files leave missing metadata empty, so check the emitted enclosure before publication. The view does not fetch remote files.

For podcasts, RSS output and an iTunes namespace declaration are only part of the publisher requirements. Configure and validate the additional metadata required by your distribution service.