Atom is an XML-based document format that describes lists of related information known as "feeds". Feeds are composed of a number of items, known as "entries", each with an extensible set of attached metadata. For example, each entry has a title.
Web feeds allow software programs to check for updates published on a website. To provide a web feed, the site owner may use specialized software (such as a content management system) that publishes a list (or "feed") of recent articles or content in a standardized, machine-readable format.
The Atom format was developed as an alternative to RSS. Ben Trott, an advocate of the new format that became Atom, believed that RSS had limitations and flaws—such as lack of on-going innovation and its necessity to remain backward compatible
Atom is a relatively recent spec and is much more robust and feature-rich than RSS. For instance, where RSS requires descriptive fields such as title and link only in item breakdowns, Atom requires these things for both items and the full Feed.
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?> <feed xmlns="http://www.r4r.co.in/2015/Atom"> <title>Example Feed</title> <subtitle>A subtitle.</subtitle> <link href="http://r4r.co.in/feed/" rel="self" /> <link href="http://r4r.co.in/" /> <id>urn:uuid:56g-95c35-p725-26f12-f85p-0329389f4ad3</id> <updated>2015-02-03T11:46:29</updated> <entry> <title>Atom- learning</title> <link href="http://r4r.co.in/2015/02/01/atom02" /> <link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="http://r4r.com/2014/07/19/atom2.shtml"/> <link rel="edit" href="http://example.org/2003/12/13/atom03/edit"/> <id>urn:uuid:56g-95c35-p725-26f12-f85p-0329389f4ad3</id> <updated>2015-02-03T11:11:13</updated> <summary>Some text.</summary> <content type="xhtml"> <div xmlns="http://r4r.co.in/2014/xhtml"> <p>Whole content.</p> </div> </content> <author> <name>Nitish kumar</name> <email>firstname.lastname@example.org</email> </author> </entry> </feed>