Create a TinyURL using Node

When you want to take long link and shorten it, you can utilize a service called TinyURL.

TinyURL is a service that lets you create shorter URLs when given a longer one.

For example, it can turn:

BASH
https://sabe.io/blog/node-create-tiny-url

into this:

BASH
https://tinyurl.com/22dgx56k

In this post, we'll learn how we can create TinyURLs in Node.

Creating TinyURLs in Node

Thankfully, TinyURL provides us an API that we can use.

Let's create a function that uses TinyURL to create a TinyURL.

JAVASCRIPT
const getTinyURL = async (url) => {
    const response = await fetch(`https://tinyurl.com/api-create.php?url=${url}`);
    return response.text();
};

It's that simple, we just make a request to TinyURL and get the response in plain text.

Let's try it out:

JAVASCRIPT
const getTinyURL = async (url) => {
    const response = await fetch(`https://tinyurl.com/api-create.php?url=${url}`);
    return response.text();
};

const url = "https://sabe.io/blog/node-create-tiny-url";
const tinyURL = await getTinyURL(url);

console.log(tinyURL);

BASH
https://tinyurl.com/22dgx56k

Now when you click on the link, you'll be redirected to the original URL:

BASH
https://sabe.io/blog/node-create-tiny-url

Conclusion

In this post, we looked at how to create TinyURLs in Node.

Just use the TinyURL endpoint, pass in your URL, and get a shortened version back.

Thanks for reading!

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