I still have not found the issue causing the conflict which I think has to do with the XML. I work alot with SVG, so I would still like to know the reason so I can avoid problems in the future. However, I am just going to use a method altogether. Not being a whiz at this stuff, I found a parser I could deal with and replaced the HTTP with my own, and the N is just the number of post you wish to display.
Also, {$item['DESCRIPTION']} is the means of pulling out that value from the array. Not knowing how standardized feeds are, I just searched through the XML feed (via browser)to see what tags are used for the info I want to display and followed the syntax.
The source that worked immediately for me is provided below or at: http://www.stemkoski.com/how-to-easily-parse-a-rss-feed-with-php-4-or-php-5/
<?php
//FUNCTION TO PARSE RSS IN PHP 4 OR PHP 4
function parseRSS($url) {
//PARSE RSS FEED
$feedeed = implode('', file($url));
$parser = xml_parser_create();
xml_parse_into_struct($parser, $feedeed, $valueals, $index);
xml_parser_free($parser);
//CONSTRUCT ARRAY
foreach($valueals as $keyey => $valueal){
if($valueal['type'] != 'cdata') {
$item[$keyey] = $valueal;
}
}
$i = 0;
foreach($item as $key => $value){
if($value['type'] == 'open') {
$i++;
$itemame[$i] = $value['tag'];
} elseif($value['type'] == 'close') {
$feed = $values[$i];
$item = $itemame[$i];
$i--;
if(count($values[$i])>1){
$values[$i][$item][] = $feed;
} else {
$values[$i][$item] = $feed;
}
} else {
$values[$i][$value['tag']] = $value['value'];
}
}
//RETURN ARRAY VALUES
return $values[0];
}
/********************************************************************************************
**********************
SAMPLE USAGE OF FUNCTION
********************************************************************************************
*********************/
//PARSE THE RSS FEED INTO ARRAY
$xml = parseRSS("http://SomeBlog.com/feeds/posts/default?alt=rss");
//SAMPLE USAGE OF
$n=1;
foreach($xml['RSS']['CHANNEL']['ITEM'] as $item) {
if($n<=5) {
echo("<article>");
echo("<h3 class=\"title\"><a href=\"{$item['LINK']}\" target=\"_blank\">
{$item['TITLE']}{$link}</a></h3>");
$pdate = $item['PUBDATE'];
echo("<h4>".$pdate."</h4>");
echo("<div class=\"description\">{$item['DESCRIPTION']}</div>");
echo("</article>");
}
$n++;
}
?>