Design and Deployment of TinyURL

System APIs

To expose the functionality of our service, we can use REST APIs for the following features:

• Shortening a URL
• Redirecting a short URL
• Deleting a short URL

Shortening a URL

We can create new short URLs with the following definition:

shortURL(api_dev_key, original_url, custom_alias=None, expiry_date=None)

The above API call has the following parameters:

1. api_dev_key (string): A registered user account’s unique identifier; it’s useful in tracking a user’s activity and allows the system to control the associated services accordingly.
2. original_url (string): The original URL that we need to be shortened.
3. custom_alias (string): Optional key that the user defines as a customer short URL.
4. expiry_date (string): Optional expiration date for the shortened URL.

A successful insertion returns the user the shortened URL. Otherwise, the system returns an appropriate error code to the user.

Redirecting a short URL

To redirect a short URL, the REST API’s definition will be:

redirectURL(api_dev_key, url_key)

With the following parameters:

1. api_dev_key (string): A registered user account’s unique identifier.
2. url_key (string): The shortened URL against which we need to fetch the long URL from the database.

A successful redirection lands the user to the original URL associated with the url_key. ...