adibyhy / url-shortener-fastapi

A URL shortener web app using Python and FastAPI

URL Shortener Web App / API using Python, FastAPI, and MongoDB

A simple FastAPI app that shortens a URL and redirects browser to the original URL.

Demo available at https://ay-us.herokuapp.com/

Requirements

Developed and tested with:

• Windows 11
  • Should work with other versions of Windows and Linux
• Firefox 94
• Python 3.9
• Miniconda3
• Python packages listed in requirements.txt
• Bootstrap 5.1.3

How to Run

1. Create a file named app.env and insert the environment variables below:

   BASE_URL=http://127.0.0.1:8000
   MONGODB_URI=mongodb+srv://user:<password>@cluster0.abc.mongodb.net/url-shortener?retryWrites=true&w=majority
   MONGODB_URI_TESTS=mongodb+srv://user:<password>@cluster0.abc.mongodb.net/url-shortener-tests?retryWrites=true&w=majority
   RNG_LENGTH=5

   • BASE_URL is the domain name of your server
     • The default is http://127.0.0.1:8000 if running locally
   • MONGODB_URI is your connection string to MongoDB for real database. Get this from your MongoDB dashboard
   • MONGODB_URI_TESTS is your connection string to MongoDB for test database. Get this from your MongoDB dashboard
   • RNG_LENGTH is the number of characters the short URL has
   • To actually set these variables, make your IDE automatically export them via a .env file (PyCharm has a plugin for this), or export them manually
2. Activate virtual environment and execute uvicorn app.main:app
   1. Add --reload to make the server restart after code changes [Only use for development]
3. Open your BASE_URL in a browser to view the home page

How to Run Tests

1. Execute pytest in terminal

List of API

[1] POST: /api/shorten

Input

Request body:

{
  "url": "string",
  "custom_name": "string"
}

Example request body:

{
  "url": "https://duckduckgo.com",
  "custom_name": "ddg"
}

Output

Response:

{
  "url": "string",
  "short_url": "string"
}

Example response:

{
  "url": "https://duckduckgo.com",
  "short_url": "https://me.com/ddg"
}

Future Improvements / Features

1. Check the original URL if it's already in database, and return the existing short URL instead of creating a new one
   1. Will reduce duplicate entries
   2. Added in commit 2c7ff7c
2. Remove unvisited link after a certain length of time has elapsed
   1. Will reduce size of database
   2. Less hoarding of custom names
3. Use Docker to containerize this app
   1. Easier to deploy
4. A page to show statistics
   1. Top 10 URLs, etc
5. Prettier home page with mobile version
   1. Added in commit 6022791

References & Credits

1. Blog post by Similoluwa Okunowo
   1. The main inspiration for this project. I reused many of their codes and added my own flavor where I see fit
2. FastAPI documentation
3. Bootstrap documentation