SimpleXML won't load Digg feed, but will load anything else. WTF?

[jamwil]

What's up guys. I'm having some issues... I've created a method as part of my lifestreaming class which takes an rss feed, and puts the data into a database... It's fairly simple... Check it....

/////
// feed
//
// LOADS THE RSS FEED FOR
// LOOPS THROUGH AND FORMATS/FILTERS POSTS
// PULLS THE TIMESTAMP OF THE LATEST UPDATE FROM THE DB
// IF THERE ARE NEW POSTS, ADD THEM TO THE DATABASE
/////
public function feed($feed,$type) {
    if (isset($feed) && isset($type)) {
 
        // LOADS THE FEED
        $xml = simplexml_load_file($feed)
            or die('Could not load feed');
 
        // LOOPS THROUGH AND FORMATS/FILTERS
        foreach ($xml->channel->item as $item) {
 
            $title = str_replace("\"","",sqlite_escape_string($item->title));
            $timestamp = strtotime($item->pubDate);
            $link = sqlite_escape_string($item->link);
            $description = sqlite_escape_string($item->description);
 
            // PULLS THE TIMESTAMP OF THE LATEST UPDATE FROM THE DB
            $qry = $this->db->query("SELECT timestamp FROM updates WHERE type=\"$type\" ORDER BY timestamp DESC LIMIT 1")
                or die("Could not get latest timestamp");
            $row = $qry->fetch();
            $lastUpdated = $row['timestamp'];
 
            // IF THERE ARE NEW POSTS, ADD THEM TO THE DATABASE
            if ($timestamp > $lastUpdated || $qry->numRows() == 0) {
                $qry = $this->db->query("INSERT INTO updates (id, type, timestamp, title, description, link) VALUES (NULL, \"$type\", \"$timestamp\", \"$title\", \"$description\", \"$link\")")
                    or die("Could not Insert post into database");
            }
 
        }
 
    } else {
        echo "Feed / Type not defined.";
    }

...Now I know this function works as I've used it for my last.fm feed as well as a slightly modified version for my twitter rss feed. For some reason though, it won't load my digg rss feed. This doesn't make sense to me... here's the feed.

http://digg.com/users/jamwil87/history/diggs.rss

And here's the implementation:

<?php
    ini_set('display_errors',1);
    error_reporting(E_ALL|E_STRICT);
    date_default_timezone_set('America/Vancouver');
    require('lifestream.class.php');
    $life = new lifestream('stream.db');
    $life->twitter('jamwil');
    $life->feed('http://ws.audioscrobbler.com/2.0/user/jamwil/lovedtracks.rss','lastfm');
    $life->feed('http://digg.com/users/jamwil87/history/diggs.rss','digg');
?>

...This script works perfectly for the twitter, and the last.fm tracks, but fails on the digg feed with this error:

Warning: simplexml_load_ file(http://digg.com/users/jamwil87/history/diggs.rss) [function.simple xml-load-file]: failed to open stream: HTTP request failed! in /Applications/MAMP/htdocs/iLoveJames/lifestream.clas s.php on line 93

Warning: simplexml_load_ file() [function.simple xml-load-file]: I/O warning : failed to load external entity "http://digg.com/users/jamwil87/history/diggs.rss" in /Applications/MAMP/htdocs/iLoveJames/lifestream.clas s.php on line 93
Could not load feed

Any ideas? I'm really at a loss here

[jamwil]

Figured it out... Digg's api requires any access from a script to have a user agent set... Just added this to the top of the page and she works like a charm

ini_set('user_agent','ilovejames/1.0');

[dlite922]

Thanks for posting the answer!



Dan