C# and .Net Core 3.1: Make a Custom URL Shortener
Since a Random URL needs to be random and the intent is to generate short URLs that do not span more than 7 - 15 characters, the real thing is to make these short URLs random in real life too and not just a string that is used in the URLs
Here is a simple clean approach to develop custom solutions
Prerequisite: Following are used in the demo.
- VS CODE/VISUAL STUDIO 2019 or any
- Create one .Net Core Console Applications
- Install-Package Microsoft.AspNetCore -Version 2.2.0
Add a class file named ShortLink.cs and put this code: here we are creating two extension methods.
public static class ShortLink
{
public static string GetUrlChunk(this long key)=>
WebEncoders.Base64UrlEncode(BitConverter.GetBytes(key));
public static long GetKeyFromUrl(this string urlChunk)=>
BitConverter.ToInt64(WebEncoders.Base64UrlDecode(urlChunk));
}
Here is the Calling Sample code
using System;
using System.Text;
using Microsoft.AspNetCore.WebUtilities;
namespace UrlShorten
{
class Program
{
static void Main(string[] args)
{
string value = "SOME MEANING DYNAMIC/STATIC CONTENT";
// Convert the string into a byte[].
byte[] asciiBytes = Encoding.ASCII.GetBytes(value);
long temp = 0;
foreach (var item in asciiBytes)
temp += item;
// key = Tiks + sub of string bytes: that will be always unique
var key = DateTime.UtcNow.Ticks + temp;
Console.WriteLine($"Dynamic Key: {key}");
var generatedUrl = key.GetUrlChunk();
Console.WriteLine($"Generated URL: {generatedUrl}");
Console.WriteLine($"Key From URL: {generatedUrl.GetKeyFromUrl()}");
Console.ReadKey();
}
}
}
Here is the final output
