URL Shortner

---

 https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=automated+deployment+python =>  http://127.0.0.1:8000/4

This project is aimed to create a URL Shortener which would take lengthy URLs and convert them into condensed form. This is done by maintaining all the useful information of the URL such as query params as well as putting no restrictions on URL length.

---

Environment

• python3
• flask
• Linux Mint

Project Structure

    Url-Shortner/
    ├── bin
    │	├── setup
    │   └── setup.sh 	   # setting up the project
    ├── templates          # all the html templates         
    │   ├── index.html          
    │   ├── base.html         
    │   ├── stats.html 
    │	└── 404.html          
    ├──  url_shortner.py      # handle all the routes
    ├──  base62.py            # converts base10 to base62 and vice-versa
    ├──  config.py            # database configuration
    ├──  README.md
    ├──  SETUP.md
    ├──  TODO.md
    ├──  requirements.txt
    ├──  schema.sql           # schema for the DB
    ├──  urls.db              # the DB
    └──  test.py 	          # some tests on the DB

Setup

Visit the Setup file

Architecture

• The framework selected for the operation is Flask because of the ease of its setup readability of the code.
• The Database selected is SQLite, although there is no relationship to maintain among the tables and thus going with NoSql DB would have worked too.
• The schema has been kept minimal to avoid extra space usage as well as maintaining low latency. Shown below

	database/
	└── urls(table)
		├── id
		├── original_url
		└── visited

• In the DB the visited column helps in click tracking. It maintains the number of times the shortened link has been open.

• For any given URL:

  • We insert the record in the DB.
  • Convert the returned record ID to base62 string
  • Return the final shotened url to the user.

• When a user visits the short url:

  • We convert the string to base10.
  • Check if any record is present with that id
  • Redirect to that original url if present
  • otherwise return 404
  • While converting to base10 we also put a check to avoid Integer Overflow Error.

• Some important features of the system:

  • Query params are not ignored.
  • No restriction over the url length.

Scalability

• The base62 algorithm provides 62 options for each digits.
• In our case, there is no restriction over the shortened url created.
• Example, if the shortened url is restricted to be of length 6

	Options for each character = 62
	Total unique string possible => 62^8 = ~ 2.1834011e+14

Making it better

Visit the Todo file