Url Shortener app

Purpose

A small app that takes a url and returns a short url that redirects to the original url.

Important note

This was the first time I've used Ruby and I felt like there would be a better way to do certain things, so I welcome you to point them out. :)

App structure

Initially I was going to use Rails and decided it would be too much of an overkill so decided to use Sinatra. This app is not trying to follow any particular conventional arquicture but the principle of Seperation of Concerns is at its fundemental core (even tho some things could've been seperated in a better way).

app.rb - the entry point of the app that starts all the other files by importing them;

model.rb - where the temporary storage is, and the functions to access the storage too;

routes.rb - where all the routes (i.e. urls) are defined, this only defines the methods we expect and their path;

responses.rb - where all the urls are handled, this contains some logic on how to handle the requests;

controllers.rb - this contains generic functions to get the necessary information that are used for the requests handling;

settings.rv - project settings;

public/ - a low effort front end page to use the app. (located at /frontend);

Procfile - deployment config file, used for Heroku;

Gemfile - Bundle config file.

How to run

This app uses Ruby 2.5 and two gems: Sinatra and json. To run the app, first install these dependencies:

bundle install

And then run the app.rb file:

ruby app.rb

How to use

A GET request to the root returns instructions on how to use the app.

There's a GUI at /frontend

There's a convenience instance hosted at https://urlshortener-app.herokuapp.com/ (it might take 10s to start up)