PHP URL Shortener

This is a simple URL shortener web application built with PHP and MySQL. DEMO

Features

• Shortens URLs to a six-character alphanumeric code
• Allows users to specify an expiry time for the short URL
• Handles invalid or expired short URLs gracefully

Requirements

• PHP 7 or later (tested with PHP 8)
• PDO extension for PHP
• MySQL 5.6 or later
• PDO_MYSQL
• Apache 'mod_rewrite' module

Installation

1. Clone this repository to your local machine
2. Upload all the files to your web server
3. Run the script and fill in your database credentials
4. Done !

Building with TailwindCSS

This project uses TailwindCSS for styling, and the package.json file contains a start script to compile the CSS code. To build the project with TailwindCSS, follow these steps:

1. Open a command prompt or terminal in the project's root directory.
2. Run the command npm install to install all the project's dependencies.
3. Once the dependencies are installed, run the command npm start to start the TailwindCSS build process.
4. The build process will watch the input.css file for changes and automatically update the output.css file with the compiled CSS code.
5. You can then use the output.css file in your HTML pages to apply the TailwindCSS styles to your web application.

Note that the --watch flag in the start script will keep the build process running in the terminal until you manually stop it by pressing Ctrl + C.

Database Structure

This project uses a MySQL database to store the shortened URLs and their metadata. The database contains a single table named short_urls, which has the following structure:

• id: The primary key column, which uniquely identifies each record.
• long_url: The original URL that the user wants to shorten.
• short_code: The generated short code for the shortened URL.
• expiry_date: The date and time when the shortened URL will expire.

The long_url and short_code columns are defined as NOT NULL, which means they cannot be empty or null. The expiry_date column is also defined as NOT NULL, which means each record must have an expiration date.

The id column is defined as an INT(11) UNSIGNED AUTO_INCREMENT PRIMARY KEY column, which means it is an auto-incrementing integer value that serves as the primary key of the table. This ensures that each record has a unique identifier.

The long_url column is defined as a TEXT column, which can hold large text values of up to 65,535 characters. The short_code column is defined as a VARCHAR(6) column, which can hold up to 6 characters. The expiry_date column is defined as a DATETIME column, which can hold date and time values from '1000-01-01 00:00:00' to '9999-12-31 23:59:59'.

Usage

To use the URL shortener, simply enter a URL into the input field on the homepage and click the "Shorten" button. The application will generate a six-character alphanumeric code for the shortened URL. You can optionally specify an expiry time for the short URL.

Demo

You can see a live demo of the URL shortener in action here.

License

This project is licensed under the MIT License. See the LICENSE file for details.