Inspiration
I was inspired by a conversation at dinner, where one of my friends commented on how relieving it was to find that, while writing her essay, one of her footnotes used a long URL. It allowed her to write less to fill up the page, since the footnote took up more of it! The idea for Massive URL was born.
What it does
Massive URL takes any URL and lengthens it. Upon receiving any link, it generates a new URL that redirects to the exact same site, but takes up much more space. Users can customize the length of their URLs, with helpful commentary appearing as they move the slider. After the click of a button, the newly generated URL redirects to the original URL! Erroneous URLs redirect to a helpful error page, and the entire site is built to be mobile-friendly.
How we built it
The front-end is built using HTML, CSS (Bootstrap), and JavaScript (JQuery). The back-end is a Flask application, and the database is running on SQLite. When a user enters a URL, it is converted to a 128-character string using the SHA3-512 hash. This string, along with the original URL, are saved in the database. Then, according to the "mass" determined by the user, the hash is appended to the URL that many times, to generate extremely long URLs. Upon receiving one of these URLs as an endpoint, my web application splits the string into 128-character chunks, and places them into a set. If each chunk is not the same, the chunk is less than 128 characters, or it is not findable in the database, the user is redirected to an error page. Otherwise, they are taken to their original destination.
Challenges we ran into
I had a bit of a challenge setting up the domain. I claimed massiveurl.tech from Domain.com, and properly configured the DNS to point to my hosting service, but the URL did not seem to cooperate.
Accomplishments that we're proud of
I am proud of setting up the web application, passing data between the various layers, parsing the URL effectively to determine where to route to, and just building a fun, quirky project.
What we learned
I learned more about building web applications and facilitating front- and back-end communication.
What's next for Massive URL
The hosting service I used, Render, automatically deletes the database after a period of non-use, which removes all of the data about which URLs route to where. Next steps could include moving it to a service that preserves the database, and alter the way URLs are generated, such as with a pseudo-random generator, such that URLs do not appear so repetitive.
Discord contact information
Brian Tieu: Brian#9868
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