How do I create a URL shortener?

Question

I want to create a URL shortener service where you can write a long URL into an input field and the service shortens the URL to \"http://www.example.org/abcdef\

Answer 1

C# version:

public class UrlShortener 
{
    private static String ALPHABET = "abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyzABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ0123456789";
    private static int    BASE     = 62;

    public static String encode(int num)
    {
        StringBuilder sb = new StringBuilder();

        while ( num > 0 )
        {
            sb.Append( ALPHABET[( num % BASE )] );
            num /= BASE;
        }

        StringBuilder builder = new StringBuilder();
        for (int i = sb.Length - 1; i >= 0; i--)
        {
            builder.Append(sb[i]);
        }
        return builder.ToString(); 
    }

    public static int decode(String str)
    {
        int num = 0;

        for ( int i = 0, len = str.Length; i < len; i++ )
        {
            num = num * BASE + ALPHABET.IndexOf( str[(i)] ); 
        }

        return num;
    }   
}