Parsing an RSS Feed in an Android Application

I tested that rss feed with the parser I use and It parsed like below. Seems it is parsable but As I wrote in comments, because of both CDATA is used and also escaped, there are texts like "A&T" but you can replace them after you parse xml.

D/*** TITLE      : A&T To Play Four Against Longwood
D/*** DESCRIPTION: A&T baseball takes a break from conference play this weekend.
D/*** TITLE      : Wilkerson Named MEAC Rookie of the Week
D/*** DESCRIPTION: Wilkerson was 6-for-14 for the week of April 9-15.
D/*** TITLE      : Lights, Camera, Action
D/*** DESCRIPTION: A&T baseball set to play nationally televised game on ESPNU.
D/*** TITLE      : Resilient Aggies Fall To USC Upstate
D/*** DESCRIPTION: Luke Tendler extends his hitting streak to 10 games.
D/*** TITLE      : NCCU Defeats A&T In Key Conference Matchup
D/*** DESCRIPTION: Kelvin Freeman leads the Aggies with three hits.

I am sharing most part of rss feed parser I used for you to compare what is different from yours.

XmlPullFeedParser.java

package com.nesim.test.rssparser;

import java.util.ArrayList;
import java.util.List;

import org.xmlpull.v1.XmlPullParser;

import android.util.Log;
import android.util.Xml;

public class XmlPullFeedParser extends BaseFeedParser {

  public XmlPullFeedParser(String feedUrl) {
    super(feedUrl);
  }

  public List<Message> parse() {
    List<Message> messages = null;
    XmlPullParser parser = Xml.newPullParser();
    try {
      // auto-detect the encoding from the stream
      parser.setInput(this.getInputStream(), null);
      int eventType = parser.getEventType();
      Message currentMessage = null;
      boolean done = false;
      while (eventType != XmlPullParser.END_DOCUMENT && !done){
        String name = null;
        switch (eventType){
          case XmlPullParser.START_DOCUMENT:
            messages = new ArrayList<Message>();
            break;
          case XmlPullParser.START_TAG:
            name = parser.getName();
            if (name.equalsIgnoreCase(ITEM)){
              currentMessage = new Message();
            } else if (currentMessage != null){
              if (name.equalsIgnoreCase(LINK)){
                currentMessage.setLink(parser.nextText());
              } else if (name.equalsIgnoreCase(DESCRIPTION)){
                currentMessage.setDescription(parser.nextText());
              } else if (name.equalsIgnoreCase(PUB_DATE)){
                currentMessage.setDate(parser.nextText());
              } else if (name.equalsIgnoreCase(TITLE)){
                currentMessage.setTitle(parser.nextText());
              } else if (name.equalsIgnoreCase(DATES)){
                currentMessage.setDates(parser.nextText());
              } 
            }
            break;
          case XmlPullParser.END_TAG:
            name = parser.getName();
            if (name.equalsIgnoreCase(ITEM) && currentMessage != null){
              messages.add(currentMessage);
            } else if (name.equalsIgnoreCase(CHANNEL)){
              done = true;
            }
            break;
        }
        eventType = parser.next();
      }
    } catch (Exception e) {
      Log.e("AndroidNews::PullFeedParser", e.getMessage(), e);
      throw new RuntimeException(e);
    }
    return messages;
  }
}

BaseFeedParser.java

package com.nesim.test.rssparser;

import java.io.IOException;
import java.io.InputStream;
import java.net.MalformedURLException;
import java.net.URL;

public abstract class BaseFeedParser implements FeedParser {

  // names of the XML tags
  static final String CHANNEL = "channel";
  static final String PUB_DATE = "pubDate";
  static final  String DESCRIPTION = "description";
  static final  String LINK = "link";
  static final  String TITLE = "title";
  static final  String ITEM = "item";
  static final  String DATES = "dates";
  private final URL feedUrl;

  protected BaseFeedParser(String feedUrl){
    try {
      this.feedUrl = new URL(feedUrl);
    } catch (MalformedURLException e) {
      throw new RuntimeException(e);
    }
  }

  protected InputStream getInputStream() {
    try {
      return feedUrl.openConnection().getInputStream();
    } catch (IOException e) {
      throw new RuntimeException(e);
    }
  }
}

FeedParser.java

package com.nesim.test.rssparser;

import java.util.List;

public interface FeedParser {
  List<Message> parse();
}

Seems you didn't change your code as I provided. If you insist to parse it like that, you need to get xml first and manipulate it for correct parsing. I am also giving a class to get xml as text at the end of this message. Please change your code like this, try and write result.

If you change this lines you will succeed.

Delete this lines from getStories function:

DocumentBuilder builder = DocumentBuilderFactory.newInstance().newDocumentBuilder();
URL u = new URL(address);
Document doc = builder.parse(u.openStream());

Instead of those deleted lines, add these:

WebRequest response = new WebRequest("http://www.ncataggies.com/rss.dbml?db_oem_id=24500&RSS_SPORT_ID=74515&media=news",PostType.GET);
String htmltext = response.Get();

int firtItemIndex = htmltext.indexOf("<item>");
String htmltextHeader = htmltext.substring(0,firtItemIndex);
String htmltextBody = htmltext.substring(firtItemIndex);

htmltextBody = htmltextBody.replace("<title>", "<title><![CDATA[ ");
htmltextBody = htmltextBody.replace("</title>", "]]></title>");

htmltextBody = htmltextBody.replace("<link>", "<link><![CDATA[ ");
htmltextBody = htmltextBody.replace("</link>", "]]></link>");

htmltextBody = htmltextBody.replace("<guid>", "<guid><![CDATA[ ");
htmltextBody = htmltextBody.replace("</guid>", "]]></guid>");
htmltextBody = htmltextBody.replace("&amp;", "&");
htmltext = htmltextHeader + htmltextBody;

Document doc = XMLfunctions.XMLfromString(htmltext);

WebRequest.java

package com.nesim.test;

import java.io.BufferedReader;
import java.io.IOException;
import java.io.InputStream;
import java.io.InputStreamReader;
import java.net.UnknownHostException;
import java.nio.charset.Charset;

import org.apache.http.HttpResponse;
import org.apache.http.client.CookieStore;
import org.apache.http.client.HttpClient;
import org.apache.http.client.methods.HttpGet;
import org.apache.http.client.methods.HttpPost;
import org.apache.http.client.protocol.ClientContext;
import org.apache.http.impl.client.BasicCookieStore;
import org.apache.http.impl.client.DefaultHttpClient;
import org.apache.http.protocol.BasicHttpContext;
import org.apache.http.protocol.HttpContext;


public class WebRequest {
  public enum PostType{
    GET, POST;
  }

  public String _url;
  public String response = "";
  public PostType _postType;
  CookieStore _cookieStore = new BasicCookieStore();

  public WebRequest(String url) {
    _url = url;
    _postType = PostType.POST;
  }

  public WebRequest(String url, CookieStore cookieStore) {
    _url = url;
    _cookieStore = cookieStore;
    _postType = PostType.POST;
  }

  public WebRequest(String url, PostType postType) {
    _url = url;
    _postType = postType;
  }

  public String Get() {
    HttpClient httpclient = new DefaultHttpClient();

    try {




      // Create local HTTP context
      HttpContext localContext = new BasicHttpContext();

      // Bind custom cookie store to the local context
      localContext.setAttribute(ClientContext.COOKIE_STORE, _cookieStore);

      HttpResponse httpresponse;
      if (_postType == PostType.POST)
      {
        HttpPost httppost = new HttpPost(_url);
        httpresponse = httpclient.execute(httppost, localContext);
      }
      else
      {
        HttpGet httpget = new HttpGet(_url);
        httpresponse = httpclient.execute(httpget, localContext);
      }

      StringBuilder responseString = inputStreamToString(httpresponse.getEntity().getContent());

      response = responseString.toString();
    }
    catch (UnknownHostException e) {
      e.printStackTrace();
    }
    catch (Exception e) {
      e.printStackTrace();
    }
    finally {
      // When HttpClient instance is no longer needed,
      // shut down the connection manager to ensure
      // immediate deallocation of all system resources
      httpclient.getConnectionManager().shutdown();
    }

    return response;
  }

  private StringBuilder inputStreamToString(InputStream is) throws IOException {
    String line = "";
    StringBuilder total = new StringBuilder();

    // Wrap a BufferedReader around the InputStream
    BufferedReader rd = new BufferedReader(new InputStreamReader(is,Charset.forName("iso-8859-9")));
    // Read response until the end
    while ((line = rd.readLine()) != null) {
      total.append(line);
    }

    // Return full string
    return total;
  }
}

Important:

Don't forget to change package name at first line in WebRequest.java

package com.nesim.test;

Results:

After these changes, you will get these:

D/title:  Two Walk-Off Moments Lead To Two A&T Losses
D/description: The Lancers win in their last at-bat in both games of Saturday's doubleheader.
D/title:  A&T To Play Four Against Longwood
D/description: A&T baseball takes a break from conference play this weekend.
D/title:  Wilkerson Named MEAC Rookie of the Week
D/description: Wilkerson was 6-for-14 for the week of April 9-15.
D/title:  Lights, Camera, Action
D/description: A&T baseball set to play nationally televised game on ESPNU.
D/title:  Resilient Aggies Fall To USC Upstate
D/description: Luke Tendler extends his hitting streak to 10 games.

Your parsing returns these:

D/title  : Two Walk-Off Moments Lead To Two A
D/description: The Lancers win in their last at-bat in both games of Saturday's doubleheader.
D/title  : A
D/description: A&T baseball takes a break from conference play thisweekend.
D/title  : Wilkerson Named MEAC Rookie of the Week
D/description: Wilkerson was 6-for-14 for the week of April 9-15.
D/title  : Lights, Camera, Action
D/description: A&T baseball set to play nationally televised game on ESPNU.
D/title  : Resilient Aggies Fall To USC Upstate
D/description: Luke Tendler extends his hitting streak to 10 games.