Make it work with a real URL

[loechel]

Re-Issue an old issue from http://code.activestate.com/recipes/576918/

is there a way to make it work with a url? i can shorten integers all day long, but when i actually enter a url i get this:

>> import short_url
>> link = '/home/gmilby/public_html/syrbotwebdesign.com/scripts/playground'
>> url = short_url.encode_url(link)
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "<stdin>", line 1, in <module>
  File "short_url.py", line 66, in encode_url
    return DEFAULT_ENCODER.encode_url(n, min_length)
  File "short_url.py", line 15, in encode_url
    return self.enbase(self.encode(n), min_length)
  File "short_url.py", line 19, in encode
    return (n & ~self.mask) | self._encode(n & self.mask)
TypeError: unsupported operand type(s) for &: 'str' and 'long'

i kept shaving off the beginning (http:, then // then...) same error everytime.

is there a way to short a real URL? (Protocoll://hostname:port/path) not only Integer values, if not the package name is misleading.

[Alir3z4]

@loechel the way that package works is different, nothing is wrong with its name.

From its docstring/README:

The intended use is that incrementing, consecutive integers will be used as
keys to generate the short URLs. For example, when creating a new URL, the
unique integer ID assigned by a database could be used to generate the URL
by using this module. Or a simple counter may be used. As long as the same
integer is not used twice, the same short URL will not be generated twice.