Shorty is a RESTful url shortening application written in Scala.

License

Licensed under the MIT license, see LICENSE.txt

Building

• cp src/main/webapp/WEB-INF/web.xml.dev src/main/webapp/WEB-INF/web.xml.prod
• Edit web.xml.prod with:
  • Full path to writable directory where you will store your database
  • the name of your host for shortening,
  • secret key to keep others from using it
• ./prod # Copies your web.xml.prod to web.xml
• sbt package
• on your deployment server, create the database directory
• scp package/shorty-1.0.war to your J2EE container to deploy it

Using

• POST to http://yourdomain.com/context/?url=URL_TO_SHORTEN&api=API_KEY
  • Returns the shortened URL
  • If you request text/xml or application/json, you will get an XML or JSON version
  • Request alternate formats via the Accept: header, or via the _type request parameter

Why?

• Wanted to write a real-world Scala app I could use
• Wanted to write my own shortener for my domain
• Wanted to write something that could use Scala actors
• Wanted to learn SBT some

Conclusions

Read my blog entry on it, or just skim this list for the lazy:

• Scala is a fun and concise language
• Bridging un-genericized classes (e.g. java.util.Enumeration) to Scala is painful
• ScalaTest is reasonably cool
• SBT is so close to being awesome, and is better than Maven, but still not that great
• J2EE packaging and deploying sucks
• Scala makes things so much easier than the Java equivalents.