Using the ultra simple XML::RSS::SimpleGen, and following step by step the example, here is a piece of code that generates an RSS feed for CPAN Ratings. It is probably pretty brittle and the main regexp could probably be improved but hey, it works!

You can run this at home, or just get the feed at http://xmltwig.com/rss/cpanratings.rss.

Comments, improvements, pointers to an existing feed... are all welcome.

Update: Du'h! Of course http://cpanratings.perl.org/index.rss already has the feed... never mind then ;--( Still, I like XML::RSS::SimpleGen.

#!/usr/bin/perl -w

use strict;

use XML::RSS::SimpleGen;

my $VERSION=0.01;

my $LIVE=1;

my $url         = "http://cpanratings.perl.org/";

######################################################
# set those variables
my $local_rss   = "/web/infotree/rss/cpanratings.rss"; 
my $webmaster   = 'me@localhost';
######################################################

my $local_cache = "cpanratings.html";

my $rss = XML::RSS::SimpleGen->new( $url, "CPAN Ratings", "Ratings and
+ Reviews for CPAN");
$rss->language( 'en' );
$rss->webmaster( $webmaster );
$rss->twice_daily();
$rss->item_limit( 25);

if( $LIVE)
  { $rss->get_url( $url ); }
else
  { open( my $html, '<', $local_cache) or die "$!";
    local undef $/;
    $_=<$html>;
  }

while( m{<h3>\s*
         <a \s+ href="([^"]*)">([^<]*)</a> # $1: module URL, $2: modul
+e name
         \s*\(([^\(]*)\)                   # $3: version
         \s*<img.*?alt="(\d) \s stars?">   # $4: rating
         \s*</h3>
         \s*<p>\s*
         (.*?)                             # $5: text (first line)
         (\s*<br \s* />.*?)?               # $6: more lines
         \s*</p>
         \s*<p>
         \s*<a[^>]*>([^<]*)</a>            # $7: author
         .*?                               # date, unused for now
         \s*<br \s* />
         \s*\(<a \s+ href="/([^"]*)"       # $8: url
         }xgs
     )
  { my( $module_url, $module_name, $module_version, $rating, $text, $m
+ore, $author, $review_url)
      = ($1, $2, $3, $4, $5, $6, $7, $8);
    my $url= "http://cpanratings.perl.org/$review_url";
    my $title= "$module_name ($module_version): $rating stars - by $au
+thor";
    my $descr= $text;
    if( $more) { $descr=~ s{\s*\.*\s*$}{ ...}; }
    $rss->item( $url, $title, $descr);
    unless( $LIVE) { warn "title: '$title' - url: '$url' - descr: '$de
+scr'\n"; }
  }

$rss->save( $local_rss, 5);           # the 5 means that the script wi
+ll scream if the RSS does not change for 5 days in a row

exit;

__END__

=head1 NAME

  gen_rss_cpanratings - generate an RSS feed for CPAN Ratings

=head1 SYNOPSYS

set the top variables, then run the script from cron twice a day

=head1 REQUIREMENTS

Perl 5, 

XML::RSS::SimpleGen

=head1 LICENSE

This library is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify
it under the same terms as Perl itself.

=head1 AUTHOR

Michel Rodriguez <mirod@xmltwig.com>

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