How to make unique short URL with Python?

Question

How can I make unique URL in Python a la http://imgur.com/gM19g or http://tumblr.com/xzh3bi25y When using uuid from python I get a very large one. I want something shorter f

Answer 1

My Goal: Generate a unique identifier of a specified fixed length consisting of the characters 0-9 and a-z. For example:

zcgst5od
9x2zgn0l
qa44sp0z
61vv1nl5
umpprkbt
ylg4lmcy
dec0lu1t
38mhd8i5
rx00yf0e
kc2qdc07

Here's my solution. (Adapted from this answer by kmkaplan.)

import random

class IDGenerator(object):
    ALPHABET = "0123456789abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz"

    def __init__(self, length=8):
        self._alphabet_length = len(self.ALPHABET)
        self._id_length = length

    def _encode_int(self, n):
        # Adapted from:
        #   Source: https://stackoverflow.com/a/561809/1497596
        #   Author: https://stackoverflow.com/users/50902/kmkaplan

        encoded = ''
        while n > 0:
            n, r = divmod(n, self._alphabet_length)
            encoded = self.ALPHABET[r] + encoded
        return encoded

    def generate_id(self):
        """Generate an ID without leading zeros.

        For example, for an ID that is eight characters in length, the
        returned values will range from '10000000' to 'zzzzzzzz'.
        """

        start = self._alphabet_length**(self._id_length - 1)
        end = self._alphabet_length**self._id_length - 1
        return self._encode_int(random.randint(start, end))

if __name__ == "__main__":
    # Sample usage: Generate ten IDs each eight characters in length.
    idgen = IDGenerator(8)

    for i in range(10):
        print idgen.generate_id()