Fetch Feed Subscribers from Google Reader with CURL

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Fetch Feed Subscribers from Google Reader with CURL

This PHP CURL example uses cookies, POST, and SSL options to login to Google Reader and fetch the number of subscribers for a feed.

Online Demo

Type in any feed and get the subscriber count from google reader.

PHP Curl Code

Note: If you don’t have a Google Reader account you need to get one for this script to function.

Download

<?php
/*
01/08/2008 By AskApache
http://www.askapache.com/security/curl-google-post-feed.html
 
This script will login to google reader with the $username and
$password variables and fetch the number of subscribers for
the $feedurl variable that you specify.
 
DEMO: http://www.askapache.com/online-tools/curl-google-feed/
*/

 
/****************************************
   SETTINGS
****************************************/
// if($_SERVER['REMOTE_ADDR'] !== '1.1.1.1')die();// only allow IP 1.1.1.1
$username=urlencode('youremail@gmail.com');
$password="yourpassword";
$feedurl=urlencode('thefeedurl'); //http://feeds.askapache.com/apache/htaccess
 
// create cookie file
$google_cookie=tempnam("./","XX");
 
$url="http://www.google.com/reader/directory/search?q=$feedurl&ck=1199813768546&client=scroll";
$postdata="Email=$username&Passwd=$password&GA3T=5AS_gBsvDHI&nui=15&".
"fpui=3&service=reader&ifr=true&askapache=lovesgoogle&rm=hide&itmpl=true&hl=en&alwf=true&continue=".
$url."&null=Sign in";
 
$ch = curl_init("https://www.google.com/accounts/ServiceLoginBoxAuth");
curl_setopt ($ch, CURLOPT_SSL_VERIFYPEER, FALSE);
curl_setopt ($ch, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, 1);
curl_setopt ($ch, CURLOPT_COOKIEJAR, $google_cookie);
curl_setopt ($ch, CURLOPT_COOKIEFILE, $google_cookie);
curl_setopt ($ch, CURLOPT_POSTFIELDS, $postdata);
curl_setopt ($ch, CURLOPT_POST, 1);
$askapache_curl_google_result = curl_exec ($ch);
curl_close($ch);
$s=array('@<noscript[^>]*?>.*?</noscript>@si','@<script[^>]*?>.*?</script>@si','@<style[^>]*?>.*?</style>@siU','@<![\s\S]*?--[ \t\n\r]*>@');
$g=preg_replace($s, '', $askapache_curl_google_result);
$g=preg_match('@href="([^"]*?)"@si',$g,$m);
 
$ch = curl_init($m[1]);
curl_setopt ($ch, CURLOPT_SSL_VERIFYPEER, FALSE);
curl_setopt ($ch, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, 1);
curl_setopt ($ch, CURLOPT_COOKIEJAR, $google_cookie);
curl_setopt ($ch, CURLOPT_COOKIEFILE, $google_cookie);
$askapache_curl_google_result = curl_exec ($ch);
curl_close($ch);
$g=preg_match('@href="([^"]*?)"@si',$askapache_curl_google_result,$j);
 
$ch = curl_init("http://www.google.com/reader/directory/search?q=$feedurl");
curl_setopt ($ch, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, 1);
curl_setopt ($ch, CURLOPT_COOKIEJAR, $google_cookie);
curl_setopt ($ch, CURLOPT_COOKIEFILE, $google_cookie);
$askapache_curl_google_result = curl_exec ($ch);
curl_close($ch);
$y=preg_match('@class="feed-result-stats"><span class="number">([^<]*?)<\/span>@si',$askapache_curl_google_result,$s);
 
// output results
header("Content-type: text/plain");
echo "(".$s[1].") Subscribers for feed: ".urldecode($feedurl);
 
// delete cookie file
unlink($google_cookie);
exit 0;
exit;
/*
"Google AdSense Automatic Login with PHP and CURL"
http://www.askapache.com/webmaster/login-to-google-adsense-using-php.html
 
"Follow your Adsense earnings with an RSS reader"
http://curl.askapache.com/libcurl/php/examples/rss-adsense.html 

"Auto-Login to Google Analytics to impress Clients"
http://www.askapache.com/webmaster/login-google-analytics.html
*/
?>

About Google Reader

Google also owns FeedBurner, which is one of my favorite products and is also free.

Thanks Google, You Rock!

How many people are subscribed to my feed?

Google Reader reports subscriber counts when we crawl feeds (within the “User-Agent:” header in HTTP). Currently, these counts include users of both Google Reader and iGoogle, and over time will include subscriptions from other Google properties.

The “User-Agent:” header of our crawler includes the name of our crawler (“FeedFetcher-Google”) along with its associated URL, the subscriber count, and a unique 64-bit feed identifier (“feed-id”). You might see multiple requests for the same feed with distinct “feed-id” values. This happens if the same feed is referenced through multiple URLs (for example, because of redirects). In that case, you’ll need to sum up the subscribers to a feed that have distinct “feed-id” values to determine the total number of Google subscribers to the feed.

Below is an example of the contents of the “User-Agent:” header:

User-Agent: Feedfetcher-Google; (+http://www.google.com/feedfetcher.html; 4 subscribers; feed-id=1794595805790851116)

CURL PHP Links

1. Using libcurl with PHP
2. PHP cURL examples
3. Google AdSense Automatic Login with PHP and CURL
4. Follow your Adsense earnings with an RSS reader
5. Auto-Login to Google Analytics to impress Clients
6. Daniel Stenberg Blog on libcurl and curl

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