Sample RSS 2.0 feed

Why test with this file

For testing feed readers, aggregators and XML-to-JSON conversion.

What to check

After your application has processed sample-rss-feed.xml, confirm that:

• Five items are found, each with a title, link and date.
• Publication dates in RFC 822 form are parsed into real dates.
• Each GUID is treated as the item's stable identifier.

How the file begins

The opening lines of sample-rss-feed.xml, exactly as they appear in the file.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<rss version="2.0">
  <channel>
    <title>Sample Feed</title>
    <link>https://example.com/</link>
    <description>A sample RSS feed for testing feed readers.</description>
    <language>en</language>
    <lastBuildDate>Thu, 01 Jan 2026 09:00:00 GMT</lastBuildDate>
    <item>
      <title>Sample post number 1</title>
      <link>https://example.com/posts/1</link>
      <guid isPermaLink="true">https://example.com/posts/1</guid>
      <pubDate>Thu, 01 Jan 2026 01:00:00 GMT</pubDate>
      <description>Use it to check that uploads, downloads and parsers behave the way you expect. Character encoding problems usually appear at the ed…

Technical details

Validated for expected format and integrity. As with any download, scan the file with your own security tools before opening it. How files are made and checked

Download from the command line and verify

Fetch the file with curl, then compare its checksum with the SHA-256 value above.

curl -o sample-rss-feed.xml 'https://sampletestfiles.com/downloads/samples/sample-rss-feed.xml'
sha256sum sample-rss-feed.xml     # Linux
shasum -a 256 sample-rss-feed.xml # macOS

On Windows, run Get-FileHash sample-rss-feed.xml -Algorithm SHA256 in PowerShell. A matching value proves that the download is complete and unaltered.

Related files

All curated sample files