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Xtroo – Content Extraction using PHP

With the release of the new content extraction tool, Xtroo, I figure its time to give a brief guide on what it can do, why to use it and more importantly how to go about using it.

For more information on Xtroo itself, go to https://xtroo.io – but basically, Xtroo allows us to Extract the content and hide the clutter on a webpage. This can be very useful when, for example, showing RSS Feed content, within an application on a mobile device. Certain sites have mobile versions however, sometimes that hide elements of the content, plus means often navigating a user away from what they are doing to view the full article, then to either get distracted or have to get back to where they were. Being able to load the full content in keeps the users flow.

To do this, on FeedJuggler ( https://www.feedjuggler.co.uk ) I use a service called Xtroo. Xtroo has a PHP library and allows for very simple data extraction. While Xtroo is a paid for service, you can register for a 14 day, 1000 API call trial to see how it works for you. Once registered the Account Management system will let you see your API token.

Installation

Installation of the PHP client library can be done throug composer with one simple command.

composer require xtroo/php-client

Usage

To use the library you can simply call it and go, having installed it through composer we should be able to use the service in our own code quite simply. Calling the method getArticle will return an associative array of data ready to work with.

use Xtroo\Xtroo;

$Xtroo = new Xtroo(‘my_token’);
$data = $Xtroo->getArticle(‘…..’);
print_r($data);

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