A shell script to fetch rss feeds in php and print them in a neat way with colors and formatting.

11-news-php

#!/usr/bin/php
<?php
declare(strict_types=1);
/**
 * Shell script to fetch rss feeds.
 *
 * @author Ricardo Boss <mail@ricardoboss.de>
 */

// feed configuration
const FEEDS = [
//	'Laravel News' => [
//		'url' => 'https://feed.laravel-news.com/',
//		'show_item_description' => true,
//		'description_max_length' => 50,
//		'max_items' => 3,
//		'reverse_items' => false,
//	],
	'php.net' => [
		'url' => 'https://news-web.php.net/group.php?group=php.announce&format=rss',
		'show_item_description' => false,
		'description_max_length' => 50,
		'max_items' => 3,
		'reverse_items' => true,
	],
	'JetBrains PhpStorm' => [
		'url' => 'https://blog.jetbrains.com/phpstorm/feed/',
		'show_item_description' => false,
		'description_max_length' => 50,
		'max_items' => 3,
		'reverse_items' => true,
	],
];

if (!extension_loaded('simplexml') || !extension_loaded('curl') || !extension_loaded('openssl')) {
	echo "One of these extensions is missing: simplexml, curl, openssl";

	exit;
}

if (PHP_MAJOR_VERSION < 8) {
	echo "At least PHP 8 is required, you are running " . PHP_VERSION;

	exit;
}

const FORMAT_PREFIX = "\e[";
const FORMAT_SUFFIX = "m";

const FORMAT_RESET = "0";
const FORMAT_BOLD = "1";
const FORMAT_DIM = "2";
const FORMAT_UNDERLINE = "4";
const FORMAT_BLINK = "5";
const FORMAT_INVERT = "7";
const FORMAT_HIDDEN = "8";

const FORMAT_TOKEN_SUFFIX = "\e[0m";

const FOREGROUND_BLACK = "0;30";
const FOREGROUND_RED = "0;31";
const FOREGROUND_GREEN = "0;32";
const FOREGROUND_BROWN = "0;33";
const FOREGROUND_BLUE = "0;34";
const FOREGROUND_PURPLE = "0;35";
const FOREGROUND_CYAN = "0;36";
const FOREGROUND_LIGHT_GRAY = "0;37";

const FOREGROUND_DARK_GRAY = "1;30";
const FOREGROUND_LIGHT_RED = "1;31";
const FOREGROUND_LIGHT_GREEN = "1;32";
const FOREGROUND_YELLOW = "1;33";
const FOREGROUND_LIGHT_BLUE = "1;34";
const FOREGROUND_LIGHT_PURPLE = "1;35";
const FOREGROUND_LIGHT_CYAN = "1;36";
const FOREGROUND_WHITE = "1;37";

const BACKGROUND_BLACK = "40";
const BACKGROUND_RED = "41";
const BACKGROUND_GREEN = "42";
const BACKGROUND_YELLOW = "43";
const BACKGROUND_BLUE = "44";
const BACKGROUND_MAGENTA = "45";
const BACKGROUND_CYAN = "46";
const BACKGROUND_LIGHT_GRAY = "47";

/**
 * Formats a token.
 *
 * @param string|int|float|bool|null|Stringable $token The token to format.
 * @param string ...$options (Optional) The formatting options to use.
 *
 * @return string The formatted token.
 */
function tokf(string|int|float|bool|null|Stringable $token, string ...$options): string {
	$token = (string)$token;

	if (count($options) == 0) {
		return $token;
	}

	$format = FORMAT_PREFIX;
	$format .= implode(';', $options);
	$format .= FORMAT_SUFFIX;

	return $format . $token . FORMAT_TOKEN_SUFFIX;
}

/**
 * Formats a message (an array of tokens).
 * Available options for tokens are the same as for tokf.
 *
 * @param array<array-key, array> $tokens The tokens to format whereas the key of this array is the token itself and the value must be an array of options.
 * @param null|string $separator (Optional) null to concatenate the tokens directly.
 *
 * @return string The formatted message.
 *
 * @see tokf
 */
function messagef(array $tokens, ?string $separator = "\n"): string {
	$message = '';
	$first = true;

	foreach ($tokens as $tokenArray) {
		$token = array_key_exists('token', $tokenArray) ? $tokenArray['token'] : $tokenArray[0];
		$options = array_key_exists('format', $tokenArray) ? $tokenArray['format'] : [];

		if (!is_array($options)) {
			$options = [$options];
		}

		$formatted = tokf($token, ...$options);

		if ($first) {
			$first = false;
		} else {
			$message .= ($separator ?? '');
		}

		$message .= $formatted;
	}

	return $message;
}

/**
 * Gets an rss feed as a stdClass object.
 *
 * @param string $url Which url to request to get the rss feed.
 *
 * @return stdClass An object, which contains the data. The success attribute will be false if the request failed, true otherwise.
 */
function getRssFeed(string $url): stdClass {
	// open handle and set settings
	$ch = curl_init();
	curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_URL, $url);
	curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_HEADER, 0);
	curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, 1);
	curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_SSL_VERIFYPEER, 0);
	curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_ENCODING , "gzip, deflate");
	curl_setopt(
		$ch,
		CURLOPT_HTTPHEADER,
		[
			'User-Agent: PHP-News-Fetcher/v1.0',
			'Accept: application/rss+xml,application/xhtml+xml,application/xml',
		]
	);

	// execute request
	$xml = curl_exec($ch);

	// create response
	$response = new stdClass();
	$response->success = false;

	// check if request was successful
	if ($xml === false) {
		$response->error = curl_error($ch);
	} else {
		$err = [];
		set_error_handler(
			static function (int $code, string $message) use (&$err) {
				$err[] = $message;
			}
		);
		// convert xml to rss
		$rss = simplexml_load_string($xml);
		restore_error_handler();
		$response->error = implode("\n", $err);

		if ($rss !== false) {
			// convert rss to json
			$json = json_encode($rss);

			// strip null and empty values
			$json = preg_replace('/,\s*"[^"]+":null|"[^"]+":null,?/', '', $json);
			$json = preg_replace('/,\s*"[^"]+":{}|"[^"]+":{},?/', '', $json);

			// convert json to stdClass
			$class = json_decode($json, false);

			if ($class === false) {
				$response->error = json_last_error_msg();
			} else {
				// save channel data to response
				$response->success = true;
				$response->data = $class->channel;
			}
		}
	}

	// close handle
	curl_close($ch);

	return $response;
}

$lines = [
	["\n~= N E W S =~\n", 'format' => [FORMAT_BOLD, FOREGROUND_LIGHT_CYAN]]
];

foreach (FEEDS as $name => $feed) {
	$response = getRssFeed($feed['url']);

	if (!$response->success) {
		$lines[] = [' ' . $name . ' ', 'format' => [FOREGROUND_GREEN, FORMAT_INVERT]];
		$lines[] = ["\nRequest to {$feed['url']} failed!", 'format' => FOREGROUND_LIGHT_RED];
		foreach (explode("\n", $response->error) as $line) {
			$lines[] = [$line, 'format' => FOREGROUND_LIGHT_RED, FORMAT_INVERT];
		}

		continue;
	}

	$data = $response->data;
	$title = [' ' . $data->title . ' ', 'format' => [FOREGROUND_GREEN, FORMAT_INVERT]];

	if (isset($data->description)) {
		$lines[] = [
			messagef(
				[
					$title,
					[' - ' . $data->description, 'format' => [FORMAT_INVERT]],
				],
				null,
			),
		];
	} else {
		$lines[] = $title;
	}

	$lines[] = [""];

	$dataItemCount = count($data->item);
	$itemCount = min($dataItemCount, $feed['max_items']);

	if ($feed['reverse_items']) {
		$start = $dataItemCount - 1;
		$end = $start - $itemCount;
		$step = -1;
	} else {
		$start = 0;
		$end = $itemCount;
		$step = 1;
	}

	for ($i = $start; $i !== $end; $i += $step) {
		$item = $data->item[$i];
		$itemLines = [
			[$item->pubDate, 'format' => FOREGROUND_PURPLE],
			[$item->title, 'format' => [FORMAT_BOLD, FOREGROUND_YELLOW]],
		];

		if (isset($item->description) && $feed['show_item_description']) {
			$itemLines[] = [
				strlen($item->description) > $feed['description_max_length']
					?
					substr($item->description, 0, $feed['description_max_length']) . "..."
					:
					$item->description,
				'format' => FOREGROUND_CYAN
			];
		}

		$itemLines[] = [$item->link, 'format' => FORMAT_UNDERLINE];

		$lines[] = [messagef($itemLines, " - ")];
	}

	$lines[] = [""];
}

echo messagef($lines);

To include this script in your servers welcome message (Message Of The Day; MOTD), put the file contents in /etc/update-motd.d/11-news (no extension!) and install sudo apt install update-motd.