How to Make a Custom URL Shortener Using C# and .Net Core 3.1

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