Hi Lynette,

I am in the middle of creating a website for our church and I have put up some streaming audio via flash mp3 player and I would like to move up to podcasting but haven’t done so yet.

All this is run from php and a mySQL database and basically it creates a php page with xml code in it and flash doesn’t know or care if it has an .xml extension.

My question is how can I use the database I have to populate a podcast and can I use a .php extension rather than an .xml to send to iTunes?

I have already created a php page that mimick the podcast generator xml but haven’t taken it any further.

I seems like you’re familiar with coding PHP MySQL: I would say yes absolutely, you can definitely generate a podcast feed based on data in your database. I am unfamiliar with the system you are using to manage your content. Generally, I would say, create a template for your file. Feed templates are pretty standard anyhow if you use the podcast generator, simply output it once and use that as the template.

Then write up some script to connect to your database, grab the podcast details and replace those details in the appropriate field inside the feed template we just talked about.

If you’re not a coder and are totally confused by this please accept my apologies. My advise then is to hire a developer who can add on to your existing system. If you haven’t gone that far with the web site, the best way is to switch to something like WordPress and create a heavily customized theme so that it does not look like a blog at all.

As for php and iTunes. I don’t use iTunes but don’t see why it would matter. Most podcatchers I know of can take any kind of URL. It’s not the file extension they care about but what is in the page. As long as they podcast feed is properly formed, it should be OK. Always validate your feed by going to feedvalidator.org. Enter the feed there. If it takes, should be no problem.