To shorten a url pass it as a parameter to the apps url as follows [appUrl]/new/[urlToShorten]
[appUrl]is the url of the application[urlToShorten]is the url you wish to shorten
The API will return a JSON object as follows: {"original_url": [urlToShorten], "short_url": [shortUrl]}
Or an error if something went wrong: {"error": [error message]}
I chose to use Bijective functions to encode the database entries auto incrementing ID.
Pros
- This method provides the shortest url's
- This method is the most efficient, no possible collisions (as with hashing), no required db lookups to insert, new links are always added to the end of the db
Cons
- Users can easily browse all links that have been shortened
- Users are unable to choose their own url path for shortened links