A url shortener is a web service that can take long urls (https://www.google.com/search?source=hp&q=this+is+a+long+url&oq=this+is+a+long+url&gs_l=psy-ab.3..0i22i30k1.1095.3196.0.3437.19.18.0.0.0.0.137.1480.14j4.18.0....0...1.1.64.psy-ab..1.18.1477.0..0j35i39k1j0i131k1j0i67k1j0i20i264k1j33i22i29i30k1.0.aJvctrIr-Ds) and create a short url (goo.gl/pEc4vt).
When the short url is accessed, the view will take the specific code associated with that url (pEc4vt) and look up the url associated with it in the database. If that URL is found, it then redirects to that URL.
| id | code | url |
|---|---|---|
1 |
pEc4vt |
https://www.google.com/search?s... |
2 |
fso3Fs |
https://www.. |
You could use the ID in the url, instead of some code, but that then exposes some details about your database to the public.
HINT: Remember the random password generator lab in python? Might be helpful in creating a random code
Your app should contain the following:
- 1 model to store the long url and short code.
- 2 views
- One to submit a url
- And one to redirect the user
- Use django's
HTTPResponseRedirectto handle redirecting users
Style your page using any CSS framework of your choice, try and make it look fancy and modern.
When the user is redirected, store some metadata on the user in the database. You can find the header metadata of the request in the dictionary-like object request.META.
Some examples of user meta data are:
- How many times a link has been clicked
- IP Address
- Where they clicked the link from
- etc...
For more examples, check out the Django documentation.
So far you can only save one instance of each metadata for a given link. Fix this by creating a Click model that stores the metadata for a particular redirection request and has a many-to-one relationship back to the link. Reference the polls code and the Django docs.