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Specification for an xml feed into Costasales.com

The XML feed that you create will allow automatic uploading of all of your property listings.

 

You may find that if you are already using a system that generates an XML feed you will be able to use this. If this is the case please contact us and we will evaluate the feed to see if it is compatible with our system

 

Creating an XML feed is technical and should be written by your web designer or web master and we therefore only go into the specification of what is required in the feed and it’s structure.

 

Unlike some property portals we do not limit you to a certain number of listings.

 

The feed that you create will detail all of the properties that you wish to list with Costasales. If you have more than one web site you are downloading from, you must create an individual feed for each unique web site. You may however use the same feed if you wish to show the same properties on different web sites I.E. where the properties shown on each web site are the same although other content may be different.

 

We will also accept different feeds for one individual web site. This will help if say you collaborate with other agencies and you wish to show say two other agencies properties on your web site under your branding. Entering a new feed will not delete the other one.

 

Once we have processed your feed all the details including images will be stored in our database.

 

CHARACTER ENCODING

If you wish to use certain characters, they must be encoded as they have set functions in XML.  You must use the coding below or their numeric equivalents.

 

THE CHARACTERS ARE:

 

CHARACTER CODING NUMERIC EQUIVILENT
     
(<) The less than character &lt; &#060;
(>) The greater than character &gt; &#062;
(&) The Ampersand character &amp; &#038;
(‘) The apostrophe character &apos; &#039;
(“) The quote character &quot; &#034;

 

The above characters need to be used in the way described below and there are times when the characters need to be encoded and times when they should not be.

 

TIMES WHEN TO ENCODE 

Basically you need to encode when you are using the above characters in open text fields, such as the description of the property in between the tags
<desc>text in here must be encoded</desc>

 

So for example if you wanted to use the text below as part of your description

 

This property has an excellent “feel good” factor about it

 

You would need to encode the quotation marks by using either the code or numeric value. So it would read as below.

 

USING THE CODE

This property has an excellent  &quot;feel good&quot;  factor about it

 

OR

 

USING THE NUMERIC

This property has an excellent   &#034;feel good&#034; factor about it   

 

TIMES WHEN NOT TO ENCODE

Do not encode anything in the actual tags, so for example <image id =”1”> needs to be written as such and not <image =  &quot;1&quot;>

 

The same goes for the <> characters around the tags, these should be shown as
<type> and not     &lt; type &lt;

 

CREATING THE FEED

To simplify reading and troubleshooting an XML feed please have each new tag on a separate line.

 

Certain tags are optional and certain tags are mandatory.

 

These are as follows: Please note that all tags must be in lower case.

 

<root>

Mandatory: this opens the feed

 

<agent>
<name>Agents name</name>
<email>Agents email address</email>
<tel>Agents telephone number</tel>
<addr1>Agents address1</addr1>
<addr2>Agents addr2</addr2>
<town>Agents town</town>
<postcode>Agents postcode</postcode>
<province>Agents Province</province>
<country>Agents Country</country>
</agent>

Mandatory: this gives us all the information we need regarding the agent.

 

<property>

Mandatory: this opens the property node

 

<id>0001</id>

Mandatory: this is your identification number from your database for the property. It must be alphanumeric and contain a maximum of 20 charachters
                        
 

<date>2007-02-10 15:09:48</date>

 Mandatory : up to 19 characters displayed as shown.

 

<ref>bdt23</ref>

 Mandatory: up to 15 characters alphanumeric this reference number
 will be seen by the visitor against the property. We also use this reference in our system.

 

<price>145000</price>

Mandatory: up to 8 numeric characters
Do not use commas or full stops. Price must be in euros. If price is in another currency it will be treated as euros and a wrong price will shown.

 

<type>
<en>Town house</en>
</type>

Mandatory: the “type” will be converted to the  “type” we use in our database. I.E. “Terraced house” will be converted to “Townhouse”. The <en> denotes English and is mandatory. At the moment we do not support other languages but if these are on the feed such as <es> for Spanish they can be left as our system will ignore them.

 

<town>Torrevieja</town>

Mandatory: in alpha characters. We will convert the town/city into the name or spelling we use if different from the town/city and or spelling in the feed. 
 
 

<province>Alicante</province> 

Mandatory: in alpha characters. We will convert into our standard province or Costa I.E. “Alicante” will be converted into “Costa Blanca”

 

<beds>1</beds> 

Mandatory: numeric characters if no beds use “0”

 

<baths>1</baths>

Mandatory numeric characters, if no baths use “0”

 

<desc>
<en>English description</en>       
</desc>                       

Mandatory: alphanumeric characters in English. No HTML

If your feed contains other languages us as <es> for Spanish. The tags can be left in as we will ignore them

 

<images>

Mandatory : maximum of 10 images

 

<image id=”1”>  up to 10 different images
<url>http://www.website.com/12345/1.jpg</url>
<title>
<en>image name</en>
</title>
</image>
</images>

The image id starts with 1 and can go up to a maximum of 10.
The url tag is the http url of the individual image. This will be uploaded onto the Costasales server.
The first image uploaded ie <image id=”1”> will be the primary image for the listing. If no images are available and you are using a primary graphic such as “awaiting image” this should be entered as <image id=”1”>. If you do not have this use

<images></images> our system will then create an “awaiting image”

 

</property>

Mandatory: this signifies the end of that property listing. You then start the next as before <property> through the above steps to </property>

After the final property listing the final tag is

 

</root>

Mandatory: this finalizes the feed

 

 BELOW IS HOW YOUR FEED SHOULD LOOK WHEN VIEWED

 

<root>
<agent>
<name>Agents name</name>
<email>Agents email address</email>
<tel>Agents telephone number</tel>
<addr1>Agents address1</addr1>
<addr2>Agents addr2</addr2>
<town>Agents town</town>
<postcode>Agents postcode</postcode>
<province>Agents Province</province>
<country>Agents Country</country>
</agent>
<property>
<id>0001</id>
<date>2007-02-10 15:09:48</date>
<ref>bdt23</ref>
<price>145000</price>
<type>
<en>Town House</en>
<es></es>
</type>
<town>Torrevieja</town>
<province>Alicante</province>
<beds>3</beds>
<desc>
<en>
Lovely Townhouse in front line position.
</en>
<es/>
</desc>
<images>
<image id="1">
<url>
http://www.website.com/12345/1.jpg
</url>
<title>
<en>Front</en>
</title>
</image>
<image id="2">
<url>
http://www.website.com/12345/2.jpg
</url>
<title>
<en>Living area</en>
</title>
</image>
</images>
</property>
</root>

Once you have created the feed please validate it and then email the URL to us at  info@costasales.com