Container Elements

The feed "container" is information about the overall site that provides the feed, consisting of several fields that are listed once for the entire feed. Included within this container are the following fields that repeat across most syndication feeds:

link

This is the link for the site's URL, such as the weblog's URL.

title

This is the title for the site, such as the weblog's title.

description

This is a description of the weblog or site, and usually contains whatever subtitle is given for the site. In Atom, this is the subtitle field.

author

In Atom, author is a structure containing the author's name and email, or just the author's email. In RSS 2.0, this field is replaced by webMaster and managingEditor, which are email addresses. In RSS 1.x, this is replaced, usually, by dc:creator (which may be either a structure or a simple value).

date

In RSS 1.x, this field, usually dc:date, is the date the feed was updated. In Atom, this is the updated field; in RSS 2.0, this is the lastBuildDate.

generator

In RSS 2.0, this is the tool used to generate the syndication feed. The Atom feed also uses generator, while RSS 1.x uses generatorAgent.

copyright

Copyright information.

language

What language the text of the document is in.

id

This field is specific to Atom, and provides a unique identifier for the site.

image

An icon or image representing the feed or site for both RSS 1.x and RSS 2.x. In Atom, this would be icon, though logo can be used for a logo representation. In RSS 1.1 and RSS 2.0, image is a structure pointing to the image's URL, title, and link to site. In RSS 1.x, the image should be 88x31. In Atom, the icon "should have an aspect ratio of one (horizontal) to one (vertical), and should be suitable for presentation at a small size." In RSS 2.0, the image should have a maximum width of 144, and maximum height of 400; default is 88x31.