How do I create a URL shortener?

Question

I want to create a URL shortener service where you can write a long URL into an input field and the service shortens the URL to \"http://www.example.org/abcdef\

Answer 1

// simple approach

$original_id = 56789;

$shortened_id = base_convert($original_id, 10, 36);

$un_shortened_id = base_convert($shortened_id, 36, 10);

Answer 2

I have a variant of the problem, in that I store web pages from many different authors and need to prevent discovery of pages by guesswork. So my short URLs add a couple of extra digits to the Base-62 string for the page number. These extra digits are generated from information in the page record itself and they ensure that only 1 in 3844 URLs are valid (assuming 2-digit Base-62). You can see an outline description at http://mgscan.com/MBWL.

Answer 3

Did you omit O, 0, and i on purpose?

I just created a PHP class based on Ryan's solution.

<?php

    $shorty = new App_Shorty();

    echo 'ID: ' . 1000;
    echo '<br/> Short link: ' . $shorty->encode(1000);
    echo '<br/> Decoded Short Link: ' . $shorty->decode($shorty->encode(1000));


    /**
     * A nice shorting class based on Ryan Charmley's suggestion see the link on Stack Overflow below.
     * @author Svetoslav Marinov (Slavi) | http://WebWeb.ca
     * @see http://stackoverflow.com/questions/742013/how-to-code-a-url-shortener/10386945#10386945
     */
    class App_Shorty {
        /**
         * Explicitly omitted: i, o, 1, 0 because they are confusing. Also use only lowercase ... as
         * dictating this over the phone might be tough.
         * @var string
         */
        private $dictionary = "abcdfghjklmnpqrstvwxyz23456789";
        private $dictionary_array = array();

        public function __construct() {
            $this->dictionary_array = str_split($this->dictionary);
        }

        /**
         * Gets ID and converts it into a string.
         * @param int $id
         */
        public function encode($id) {
            $str_id = '';
            $base = count($this->dictionary_array);

            while ($id > 0) {
                $rem = $id % $base;
                $id = ($id - $rem) / $base;
                $str_id .= $this->dictionary_array[$rem];
            }

            return $str_id;
        }

        /**
         * Converts /abc into an integer ID
         * @param string
         * @return int $id
         */
        public function decode($str_id) {
            $id = 0;
            $id_ar = str_split($str_id);
            $base = count($this->dictionary_array);

            for ($i = count($id_ar); $i > 0; $i--) {
                $id += array_search($id_ar[$i - 1], $this->dictionary_array) * pow($base, $i - 1);
            }
            return $id;
        }
    }
?>

Answer 4

You could hash the entire URL, but if you just want to shorten the id, do as marcel suggested. I wrote this Python implementation:

https://gist.github.com/778542

Answer 5

Very good answer, I have created a Golang implementation of the bjf:

package bjf

import (
    "math"
    "strings"
    "strconv"
)

const alphabet = "abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyzABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ0123456789"

func Encode(num string) string {
    n, _ := strconv.ParseUint(num, 10, 64)
    t := make([]byte, 0)

    /* Special case */
    if n == 0 {
        return string(alphabet[0])
    }

    /* Map */
    for n > 0 {
        r := n % uint64(len(alphabet))
        t = append(t, alphabet[r])
        n = n / uint64(len(alphabet))
    }

    /* Reverse */
    for i, j := 0, len(t) - 1; i < j; i, j = i + 1, j - 1 {
        t[i], t[j] = t[j], t[i]
    }

    return string(t)
}

func Decode(token string) int {
    r := int(0)
    p := float64(len(token)) - 1

    for i := 0; i < len(token); i++ {
        r += strings.Index(alphabet, string(token[i])) * int(math.Pow(float64(len(alphabet)), p))
        p--
    }

    return r
}

Hosted at github: https://github.com/xor-gate/go-bjf

Answer 6

Here is my PHP 5 class.

<?php
class Bijective
{
    public $dictionary = "abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyzABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ0123456789";

    public function __construct()
    {
        $this->dictionary = str_split($this->dictionary);
    }

    public function encode($i)
    {
        if ($i == 0)
        return $this->dictionary[0];

        $result = '';
        $base = count($this->dictionary);

        while ($i > 0)
        {
            $result[] = $this->dictionary[($i % $base)];
            $i = floor($i / $base);
        }

        $result = array_reverse($result);

        return join("", $result);
    }

    public function decode($input)
    {
        $i = 0;
        $base = count($this->dictionary);

        $input = str_split($input);

        foreach($input as $char)
        {
            $pos = array_search($char, $this->dictionary);

            $i = $i * $base + $pos;
        }

        return $i;
    }
}