Building RESTful Web services with Go

Creating a basic API layout for URL shortening services

Have you ever wondered how URL shortening services work? They take a very long URL and give a shortened, crisp, and memorable URL back to the user. At first sight, it looks like magic, but it is a simple math trick.

In a single statement, URL shortening services are built upon two things:

•  A string mapping algorithm to map long strings to short strings ( Base 62)
•  A simple web server that redirects a short URL to the original URL

There are a few obvious advantages of URL shortening:

• Users can remember the URL; easy to maintain
• Users can use the links where there are restrictions on text length; for example, Twitter
• Predictable shortened URL length

Take a look at the following diagram: ...