RSS feed not showing full text regardless of settings

[miocene22]

This came to my attention after a client approached me noting that the RSS feed only outputs a summary regardless of the "full text" setting in the wordpress back end.

The problem is seen in the core file: wp-includes/feed-rss2.php; line 44:

<?php if (get_option('rss_use_excerpt')) : ?>
                <description><![CDATA[<?php the_excerpt_rss() ?>]]></description>
<?php else : ?>
                <description><![CDATA[<?php the_excerpt_rss() ?>]]></description>
        <?php if ( strlen( $post->post_content ) > 0 ) : ?>
                <content:encoded><![CDATA[<?php the_content_feed('rss2') ?>]]></content:encoded>
        <?php else : ?>
                <content:encoded><![CDATA[<?php the_excerpt_rss() ?>]]></content:encoded>
        <?php endif; ?>
<?php endif; ?>

Instead I believe it should be:

<?php if (get_option('rss_use_excerpt')) : ?>
                <description><![CDATA[<?php the_excerpt_rss() ?>]]></description>
<?php else : ?>
                <description><![CDATA[<?php the_content_feed('rss2') ?>]]></description>
        <?php if ( strlen( $post->post_content ) > 0 ) : ?>
                <content:encoded><![CDATA[<?php the_content_feed('rss2') ?>]]></content:encoded>
        <?php else : ?>
                <content:encoded><![CDATA[<?php the_excerpt_rss() ?>]]></content:encoded>
        <?php endif; ?>
<?php endif; ?>

From my background reading, it's a matter of contention whether <description> should contain the synopsis or full content.

Opera 11 and Internet Explorer 9 both use <content:encoded> if it exists, while Firefox 4 does not. Google Chrome has no native RSS display.

#10689