URL Shortener (JavaScript/Express)

Same project, different language. Learning by rebuilding the same thing multiple times in different programming languages.

How it works

1. POST a long URL to /shorten or use the frontend form
2. Get back a short URL
3. Visit /{shortCode} for redirection to the original URL

Running locally

git clone https://github.com/robiverdev/urlshortenerjs
cd urlshortenerjs
npm install
node server.js

Server starts on http://localhost:4000

Usage

Shorten a URL:

curl -X POST -H "Content-Type: application/json" -d '{"originalUrl":"https://google.com"}' http://localhost:4000/shorten

Response example: {"shortUrl":"http://localhost:4000/4aGewg"}

Visit the short URL:

http://localhost:4000/4aGewg

Redirects to the original URL.

What I learned

• Building HTTP servers with Express
• Handling JSON POST requests and parsing request bodies
• Generating unique short codes with nanoid library
• Using in memory storage with JavaScript objects
• Implementing HTTP redirects using Express
• Serving static frontend files with Express middleware
• Connecting frontend to backend using the Fetch API
• Minimal CSS styling for user friendly display

Other implementations

• Go
• Rust
• C (coming soon)