WordPress question
Sunday, December 20, 2015 by Dave Winer

A question for WordPress developers.

Is there a way to get a list of all the RSS feeds for blogs hosted on a server?

I don't really care what the format is as long as it's machine readable.

The two best formats would be:

  1. OPML subscription list.
  2. JSON-formatted file, with at least two pieces of info about each feed: the title of the blog and the URL of its RSS feed.

I have an application in mind for this, but need help on the WordPress side.

Thanks! 

PS: If you don't want to leave a public reply, you can send email to dave.winer@gmail.com or post a note on the River4 mail list

PPS: Assume I know nothing about running a WordPress server.

  • I don't think so. If you have individual Wordpress installations they don't know about each other.  If you are running a multi site installation you can probably install a plugin to do this. Not sure a multi site installation is good for a novice though. It can be a little tricky to configure.

  • Even on multisite I don't think there is anything native. The closest thing I know of in general use is people often install a MU Multisite "tags" plugin which aggregates all posts to a single blog for the purpose of tag browsing and search. That plugin defaults to publish in rooturl.com/tags/ or in rooturl.com/, but again, it is just a feed of all posts on the server, and only works if enabled.

    JSON support is improving, but JSON support for readers (as opposed to admins) has so far not given out much more information than was in RSS, so I doubt the answer is there, at least not yet. In general I've found the WP thinking about what JSON should expose publicly to be a bit narrow, if you have influence there I'd love you to use it.