Replicate RSS Feeds from PowerShell



Write a quick PowerShell script to query RSS feeds. Use connectivity to the live data to replicate RSS feeds to SQL Server.



The CData ODBC Driver for RSS enables out-of-the-box integration with Microsoft's built-in support for ODBC. The ODBC driver instantly integrates connectivity to the real RSS feeds with PowerShell.

You can use the .NET Framework Provider for ODBC built into PowerShell to quickly automate integration tasks like replicating RSS feeds to other databases. This article shows how to replicate RSS feeds to SQL Server in 5 lines of code.

You can also write PowerShell code to download RSS feeds. See the examples below.

Create an ODBC Data Source for RSS

If you have not already, first specify connection properties in an ODBC DSN (data source name). This is the last step of the driver installation. You can use the Microsoft ODBC Data Source Administrator to create and configure ODBC DSNs.

You can connect to RSS and Atom feeds, as well as feeds with custom extensions. To connect to a feed, set the URL property. You can also access secure feeds. A variety of authentication mechanisms are supported. See the help documentation for details.

Connect to RSS

The code below shows how to use the DSN to initialize the connection to RSS feeds in PowerShell:

$conn = New-Object System.Data.Odbc.OdbcConnection $conn.ConnectionString = "DSN=CData RSS Source x64"

Back Up RSS Feeds to SQL Server

After you enable caching, you can use the code below to replicate data to SQL Server.

Set the following connection properties to configure the caching database:

  • CacheProvider: The name of the ADO.NET provider. This can be found in the Machine.config for your version of .NET. For example, to configure SQL Server, enter System.Data.SqlClient.

  • CacheConnection: The connection string of properties required to connect to the database. Below is an example for SQL Server:

    Server=localhost;Database=RSB;User Id=sqltest;Password=sqltest;

The SQL query in the example can be used to refresh the entire cached table, including its schema. Any already existing cache is deleted.

$conn.Open() # Create and execute the SQL Query $SQL = "CACHE DROP EXISTING SELECT * FROM " + $Latest News $cmd = New-Object System.Data.Odbc.OdbcCommand($sql,$conn) $count = $cmd.ExecuteNonQuery() $conn.Close()

The driver gives you complete control over the caching functionality. See the help documentation for more caching commands and usage examples. See the help documentation for steps to replicate to other databases.

Other Operations

To retrieve RSS feeds in PowerShell, call the Fill method of the OdbcDataAdapter method. To execute data manipulation commands, initialize the OdbcCommand object and then call ExecuteNonQuery. Below are some more examples commands to RSS through the .NET Framework Provider for ODBC:

Retrieve RSS Feeds

$sql="SELECT Author, Pubdate from Latest News" $da= New-Object System.Data.Odbc.OdbcDataAdapter($sql, $conn) $dt= New-Object System.Data.DataTable $da.Fill($dt) $dt.Rows | foreach { $dt.Columns | foreach ($col in dt{ Write-Host $1[$_] } }

Ready to get started?

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RSS Icon RSS ODBC Driver

The RSS ODBC Driver is a powerful tool that allows you to connect with live RSS feeds, directly from any applications that support ODBC connectivity.

With the RSS ODBC Driver, accessing live RSS feeds is as easy as querying a database.