ritly_mini_project: A Ruby repository from hhuang2088

##Ritly

You are going to build a url-shortening app similar to Bitly, called Ritly. The challenge is going to be understanding the flow of control in a Rails app.

####Description of App

Visitors to Ritly will be able to request a randomly generated code for their URL link and save it to the database.
Visitors to Ritly can go to localhost:3000/go/random_generated_code and the application will redirect them to the matched link in the database.
Visitors to Ritly can go to localhost:3000/go/random_generated_code/preview and preview the URL to which they would be redirected.

####Instructions

We are going to stimulate your understanding of Rails through experience. With the description and demo above, build Ritly. Use the hints below to help you create the app.

####Here are a few hints.

The URLs Table

id	link	random_string	created at	updated at
1	http://www.generalassemb.ly	m1gpLHq8aoY	Wed, 19 Jun 2013 21:23:30 UTC +00:00	Wed, 19 Jun 2013 21:23:30 UTC +00:00
2	http://www.google.com	T7DViXiIxFE	Wed, 19 Jun 2013 21:25:32 UTC +00:00	Wed, 19 Jun 2013 21:25:32 UTC +00:00
3	http://www.bustedtees.com	pxMpvdB8LRw	Wed, 19 Jun 2013 21:23:30 UTC +00:00	Wed, 19 Jun 2013 21:23:30 UTC +00:00

Using the above table description you should be able to answer the following questions for yourself:

What is the name of the table above?
Knowing the name of the table what should the model be called?
What attributes will your model have?
Which of these columns are automatically generated for every model?

After you create your URL model validate the presence of the link attribute and that the link has at least three characters.

Note: remember to use postgres as your database

The Routes

Think about the different pages and actions that exist on Ritly.

Make sure you have a root
Allow new URLs to be created and displayed
URL redirection and URL previewing are separate actions
Make sure you know the purpose of every entry in the result of rake routes
An edit route for the url submitted. The edit route should let you change the link for the URL.

The Views

show.html.erb

Visitors are redirected to the show page after they request a randomly generated code for their URL link. This view will display the random code that was generated: "Your code is: random_code" Go to localhost:3000/go/random_code to visit your URL.

Generating a Random String

Use SecureRandom.urlsafe_base64(length_of_string). length_of_string is literally just meant to be the length of some string, used to help you generate a random string. Read the above documentation if you have any questions.

Testing

Test each route to check for a 200 status (expect(response.status).to be_success or expect(response.status).to eq(200)) and that it renders the correct template.
Add some model specs that test your validations.

Bonus:

Make the preview page/url show page display the number of times someone has used that redirect.
Want to DRY up your views by using partials? Take a look here (try to make this a habit).
Allow a user to create a custom redirect string, like my_string, that will then be used for the shortened string, e.g. localhost:3000/go/my_string redirects to their url. Make sure to think about possible problems this could cause.
Make the preview page contain a preview of the content at the url, not just the target url. (Note this is intentionally vague, because it's hard and you'll have to get creative and be resourceful.)
Research regular expressions and add a validation using regular expression for the URL link. (HARD)

Challenge