[RSS] add "last updated on" date field to each thread in the RSS feed

[Migrated From Jforum.net]

Hi;
think this 'last update' date should be added to the RSS stream
this can be great for situations where you read RSS feeds from multiple sources and while combining the sources you want to sort the list to get the most updated entries (which arent nessecarily the ones that were published the latest).
currently, the pupDate element in the RSS is the publication date...

for example;
old format:
<item>
<title>warm test</title>
<description><![CDATA[ bla bla]]]></description>
<guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.jforum.net/posts/preList/5376/21040.page</guid>;
<link>http://www.jforum.net/posts/preList/5376/21040.page</link>;
<pubDate><![CDATA[Wed, 27 May 2009 02:39:00]]> GMT</pubDate>
<author><![CDATA[ ideafly]]></author>
</item>

new format:
<item>
<title>warm test</title>
<description><![CDATA[ bla bla]]]></description>
<guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.jforum.net/posts/preList/5376/21040.page</guid>;
<link>http://www.jforum.net/posts/preList/5376/21040.page</link>;
<pubDate><![CDATA[Wed, 27 May 2009 02:39:00]]> GMT</pubDate>
<lastUpdate><![CDATA[Wed, 30 May 2009 09:39:00]]> GMT</lastUpdate>
<author><![CDATA[ ideafly]]></author>
</item>

BTW, I am not sure if the RSS specification supports such a thing...
[originally posted on jforum.net by gkatz]

[Migrated From Jforum.net]

According the RSS spec, there is no lastUpdate tag. See:

http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/rss/rss.html

The real problem is that RSS is not designed for threaded discussions. So it's hard to map a list of topics with replies into a meaningful RSS feed.

JForum's RSS implementation maps Forum RSS feeds into the most recently create topics (not topics posted to). The pubdate is the date the topic was created.

Topic RSS feeds are the most recent posts with the pubDate being the post date.

There is the recent topics RSS feed which returns topics with recent postings and uses a pubDate based on the most recent post.

That said, you might be able to modify the PostModel.selectLatestByForumForRSS query to behave like the "selectHotForRSS" query and use a pubDate/order like the recent topics for the forum RSS.
[originally posted on jforum.net by monroe]