Feeds glossary
The glossary is introductory and therefore not in alphabetical order. It is meant to be read from top to bottom or searched with your browser's search function.
Terms in italic are terms defined in this glossary. For developers, references to classes are included.
Plugin
A plugin is a swappable handler. It can be either a fetcher, a parser or a processor.
See FeedsPlugin class.
Fetcher
A plugin responsible for downloading, loading or receiving a feed.
See FeedsFetcher and extending classes.
Parser
A plugin responsible for bringing a fetched feed into a normalized format for processors.
See FeedsParser and extending classes.
Processor
A plugin that "does stuff" with a parsed feed. Usually a processor stores a feed in one or the other form (a node, a user, a taxonomy term, a simple DB record).
See FeedsProcessor and extending classes.
Feed
A body of data. Can contain a title and feed items. A feed can appear in different forms depending on the import stage: before fetching, a feed is the external document to be fetched. After fetching, it is the raw data dump handed to the parser. After parsing, it is the normalized PHP array that is passed to the processor.
Depending on the import stage, a feed is represented by a FeedsFetcherResult or a FeedsParserResult.
See FeedsFetcherResult class, FeedsParserResult class.
Feed item
A feed is assumed to have a series of equally formed entities: feed items. The composition of these items depends on the parser.
Feed source
This is the description of the source of a feed. This can be for example a URL or a path to a file. But a feed source can also have other properties describing a source. For instance, which field delimiter is being used in a CSV file.
See FeedsSource class.
Importer
An importer contains a specific configuration of one fetcher, one parser and one processor. It is used to import a feed. Importers can be used through a standalone import form available on http://www.example.com/import/ or they can be attached to a content type. In the latter case feeds are imported by creating nodes of such a content type.
Importers are configured on http://www.example.com/admin/build/feeds/. They are sometimes referred to as "Importer configuration or "Configuration".
See FeedsImporter class.
Import stages
The state of the importing process. The import stages are: fetching stage, parsing stage and processing stage.
Feed node
A node that is used for importing feeds. When an importer is attached to a content type, a node of this content type needs to be created in order to import a feed. Such nodes are called feed nodes.
Scheduler
The Scheduler is responsible for the repeated download (= aggregation) of feeds.
See FeedsScheduler class.
Mapping
A mapping is a rule that defines which feed item property should be placed where on a Drupal entity. For example, a mapping can define that the title of a feed item should be mapped to the node's title property. Or it can define that the 'E-mail address' property of a feed item should be mapped to the user's mail property.
A mapping connects a Mapping Source to a Mapping Target.
On the UI, you can define mappings when you edit an importer's configuration and go to "Mappings".
On a code level, mappings are PHP arrays. Read more in The developer's guide to Feeds
Mapping Source
A mapping source is a property of a feed item that can be used in a mapping. For example, a feed item's title or GUID; or, to mention a non-syndication example, a feed item's email property.
Mapping Target
A mapping target is a property of a Drupal entity that is to be created by the processor and can be used in a mapping. E. g. a user object's name property or a node's title property.
OPML
"Outline Processor Markup Language", an XML format used for showing the outline of one or more feeds. See also OPML on Wikipedia