URL Shortener API using Django Rest Framework

This project is a URL shortener API built using Django Rest Framework. The API allows users to submit long URLs and receive shorter versions that are mapped to the original URLs through a database. It includes validation to ensure that only valid URLs are submitted, and it prevents duplicate URLs from being stored. Additionally, the project utilizes django-cors-headers to manage and verify access to the API from different origin URLs.

Features

• Shorten long URLs into easily shareable short URLs.
• Prevent duplicate URLs from being stored in the database.
• Validate submitted URLs to ensure they are in the correct format.
• Manage and control cross-origin resource sharing (CORS) using django-cors-headers.

Installation

1. Clone the repository:

   git clone https://github.com/edgarmuyomba/urlShortenerAPI.git
   cd urlShortenerAPI

2. Create and activate a virtual environment

   python -m venv venv
   source venv/bin/activate  # On Windows: venv\Scripts\activate

3. Install the required packages

   pip install -r requirements.txt

4. Setup the database

   python manage.py runserver

5. Access the API at http://127.0.0.1:8000/ in your browser or API client.

API Endpoints

• POST /api/shorten/
  • Description: Submit a URL to be shortened.
  • Request Body:

  {
      "source": "https://www.example.com/long-url"
  }
  

  • Reponse

  {
      "tiny": "http://127.0.0.1:8000/<int>/"
  }
  

• GET /s/{short_code}
  • Description: Redirect to the original URL associated with the provided short code.

CORS Configuration

The project uses django-cors-headers to manage cross-origin resource sharing. By default, the CORS configuration allows requests from all origins. You can modify the CORS_ALLOW_ALL_ORIGINS setting in settings.py to restrict access to specific origins

CORS_ALLOW_ALL_ORIGINS = False
CORS_ALLOWED_ORIGINS = [
    "http://localhost:8001",
    "https://your-frontend-domain.com",
]