URL Shortener

This project is a simple URL shortener built using Node.js and MySQL. It allows users to shorten long URLs and redirect them to their corresponding long URLs. Features

Shorten long URLs
Redirect short URLs to their corresponding long URLs
MySQL database to store short and long URLs
Generates unique short URLs using the shortid library

Prerequisites

Node.js
MySQL

Installation

Clone the repository to your local machine

git clone https://github.com/ayushch80/url-shortener.git

Install the necessary packages

npm install

Create a MySQL database and table to store the short and long URLs.

CREATE DATABASE url_shortener;
USE url_shortener;
CREATE TABLE urls (
    id INT AUTO_INCREMENT PRIMARY KEY,
    short_url VARCHAR(255) NOT NULL,
    long_url VARCHAR(255) NOT NULL,
    created_at TIMESTAMP DEFAULT CURRENT_TIMESTAMP
);

Update the MySQL connection details in the .env as follows file.

PRODUCTION=[Whether it should run in production mode (true or omit the line)]
PUBLIC_PORT=[The port on which the server should run]
SQL_HOST=<MySQL host>
SQL_USER=<MySQL user>
SQL_PASSWORD=<MySQL password>

Start the server

node app.js

Usage

To shorten a long URL, visit http://localhost:3000/shorten?longUrl=<long-url> in your browser.
To redirect a short URL to its corresponding long URL, visit http://localhost:3000/<short-url> in your browser.
To view the contents of the urls table, visit http://localhost:3000/urls in your browser.

Note

The server is running on port 3000, you can change it as per your requirement.
The database credentials should be updated as per your setup.
Make sure to validate the input and sanitize the output when displaying data from a database to prevent SQL injection and other security risks.
The /urls route should only be accessible to authorized personnel and should be removed or secured in a production environment.
Displaying raw data from the database on a web page can also be a security concern. It would be a good idea to only show the necessary information and not the entire database.