README.md

URL Shortener

This code accompanies "A Concise URL Shortener in Python".

Instructions

1. Follow the instructions in the blog post to set up the database (spreadsheet).
2. Acquire access to a machine with a fixed, public IP address. I use a cheap VPS from DigitalOcean (non-referral link).
3. Clone this repo onto your server: git clone https://github.com/guoguo12/gsheets-url-shortener.git.
4. Change SHEET_ID in shortener.py to your spreadsheet's ID, and also configure PORT.
5. Install dependencies with pip install -r requirements.txt. (Make sure you're using the pip for your Python 3 installation.)
6. Run the server: python3 shortener.py.

You may also want to register a domain name and point it at your server.

Potential improvements

Ideas for improving the code:

• Find a way to modify the spreadsheet such that the server crashes while parsing the CSV. Then use Python's csv module to parse the database instead.
• When a user requests a short URL that isn't in the database, our server responds with an ugly "Internal Server Error" page. Handle this gracefully.
• Cache database queries using functools.lru_cache, then add a special endpoint for clearing the cache.
• Keep track of how many times each short URL has been accessed. (Bonus points for writing click-count data back to the spreadsheet.)