/tinyurl

an experiment to show how can I build a tinyurl service in nodejs

Primary LanguageJavaScript

summary

  • create a tiny url

    • get url (as input from body)
    • make md5 hash of url
    • one cache layer (redis), and storage layer (mongo)
    • fast retrieval of the tiny url from redis (if it exists)
    • fast retrieval of the tiny url from mongo (if it doesn't exist in redis) - mongo has an single key index on tiny url code
    • if it doesn't exist in both redis and mongo, that means we need to create a new tiny url
    • create tiny url
    • persist in redis (for 24 hours only)
    • persist in mongo
    • return tiny url

  • get an original url from tiny url

    • get tiny url (as input from query)
    • check if it exists in redis
    • check if it exists in mongo (if it does, place it in redis)
    • return tiny url OR error

improvements

  • check for url hash collision
  • better input validation
  • better error management and handling
  • more descriptive restful based error responses

apis

create a tiny url

URL /experiment/api/v1/shortner/
Method: POST Body
{ url: "www.nerd-in-dubai.com" }
Success Response:

  • Code: 201
  • Content: { code: "ejhhfi4qg" }

get tiny url

URL /experiment/api/v1/shortner/:code
Method: GET
Body
Success Response:

  • Code: 200
  • Content: { url : "www.nerd-in-dubai.com" }

usage

  • npm install
  • for running gulp: gulp default
  • for running mocha only: mocha
  • for running heroku: heroku open

deployment

  • the project is deployed on heroku (using redis + mongo addons)