trim-it

A simple REST API written in PHP 8 without using any particular frameworks. It enables a user to shorten ("trim") a URL and generate its hash that can be used to retrieve the original URL. The application code was structured in such a way it follows the MVC architecture pattern. The project is still in development.

Tech stack

Type	Technology used
Core scripting language	PHP 8
Database (dev & test)	MySQL
Unit testing	PHPUnit
Dependency management	composer

Project setup

PHP >= 8.3 is recommended. An instance of active MySQL database with permissions to create/manage databases/users is needed.

Clone the repository

git clone https://github.com/erykmika/trim-it.git

Install dependencies (composer)

cd ./trim-it/
composer install

This assumes the global installation of composer.

Configure the database

Modify include/db_config.php and, optionally, tests/test_db_config.php to provide database credentials for a development and a testing database respectively. Run the create_schema.sql script for both databases to create a proper schema for the application:

mysql -u <user> -p -d <database> < ./sql/create_schema.sql

Run the application

You can use the Apache HTTP Server to handle HTTP requests. You will have to expose the public directory in the configuration. An .htaccess file specifying rewriting rules is provided. For the sake of simplicity, you can also use the in-built PHP web development server:

cd ./public/
php -S localhost:8080

Now the application will respond to the API requests on the specified addresss.

Endpoints

The application handles and serves JSON-encoded requests/responses.

Method	URL	Description
GET	/url/:hash	Get full URL
POST	/hash	Generate URL hash

POST JSON body structure

{
    "url": "<url to be shortened>"
}

Response JSON body structure

{
    "status": "<success/failure>",
    "<hash/url>": "<hash/url>"
}

Unit testing

To launch tests, run the vendor-provided PHPUnit executable.

./vendor/bin/phpunit --testdox

The --testdox flag provides more user-friendly output of the tests.