Shortlink Generator Question/Help/Assistance!

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  1. jacharless profile image75
    jacharlessposted 11 years ago

    Hey Techs,
    Have a question for you.

    Am building a system [using PHP] where a users Long URL is saved table-side at registration. Need to echo a short link on page both for encoding and sizing reasons.

    Have been able to generate a string of characters (8) to use as the "short link" but when I tried to use a pre_replace to swap the Long URL for the Short URL I received a delimiter/alphanumeric character error.

    Any idea how to fix this or an alternative solution. Thanks in advance.  James.

  2. paradigmsearch profile image60
    paradigmsearchposted 11 years ago

    Just some thoughts...

    Sometimes the compiler is a wuss and it's not the programmer's fault. I've solved that problem in the past by:

    1. De-nesting.

    2. Using a string of 2 or 3 simpler commands/functions to replace the single "stronger" command/function.

  3. jacharless profile image75
    jacharlessposted 11 years ago

    Para!
    Right, I did the following:

    $long="gitara.me/Artist/$ARTIST/";

    function generateRandomString($length) {
    $result = ''; for ($i = 0; $i < $length; $i++) {
    $num = rand(48, 122); $result .= chr($num);} return $result;} $short=generateRandomString(8);

    $shortlink=preg_replace($long,"",$short);

    Have no idea why this delimiter error popped up. I checked php.co.uk but got noting back.
    James.

    1. paradigmsearch profile image60
      paradigmsearchposted 11 years agoin reply to this

      I'm not familiar with this language syntax, but I noticed that:

      You have an odd number of "   Do they need to be evenly paired?

      Just a shot in the dark here. smile

      1. jacharless profile image75
        jacharlessposted 11 years agoin reply to this

        No worries.
        The syntax is PHP

        The .= is used in place of a= a . b which is used to cluster elements of a string.
        In this case, Part One is $result=''; or null.
        Part two is $result .= chr($num) which returns is a string of random ASCII characters $num=rand() for~each instance where $result= null.

        So, it states $result = null . chr($num) or $result .= chr($num)
        The last bit assigns a total character output of (8).

        The goal is create a readable shortlink, like bit.ly, fb.me, ow.ly or t.co and allow the visitor to use the shortlink to share the page. I worked out a temp solution which does this command at registration, and stores the shortlink in the database. At runtime, the shortlink is echoed on-page. But, this means loading another script to parse the URI when the domain is opened, and redirect to the true page else a custom 404. Ugh!

        James.

        ps, yes, magic quotes in PHP must always be paired, or it throws errors.

        1. paradigmsearch profile image60
          paradigmsearchposted 11 years agoin reply to this

          I truly am obsolete. But I'm fine with that. big_smile

 
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