iOS Development: How can I shorten a URL from my c

Question

I'm building an iPhone app and I'd like to include functionality that allows users to login to twitter and tweet a link to my app. In order to do this, however, the tweet will need to shorten the URL to my app on the App Store. How can I write code to shorten a URL for a tweet?

I've done a search for this and found a tutorial on iCodeBlog, as well as some questions posted on SO, however, they're all either more work than I think is needed or they're using http://api.tr.im, which is no longer available. I'm hoping there's a newer approach to this that is as simple as the iCodeBlog solution.

Thanks for your wisdom!

Answer 1

You simple do a HTTP Request to an Service of your choice. I have choosen l.pr in this example. Many other Services have such an easy API. The magic here is in a method that is a part of NSString. This method is called stringWithContentsOfURL. It will easily allow you to grab the text of any remote source.

As an example:

NSString *url    = @"http://woodleader.org";
NSString *apiEndpoint = [NSString stringWithFormat:@"http:/api.l.pr/shorten?apikey=axbymc46859i685jfk9fk&longurl=%@",url];
NSString *shortURL = [NSString stringWithContentsOfURL:[NSURL URLWithString:apiEndpoint]
         encoding:NSASCIIStringEncoding
         error:nil];
NSLog(@"Long: %@ - Short: %@",url,shortURL);

Answer 2

Thanks to Sandro and woodleader:

NSString *apiEndpoint = [NSString stringWithFormat:@"http://tinyurl.com/api-create.php?url=%@",active_content_url];
NSString *shortURL = [NSString stringWithContentsOfURL:[NSURL URLWithString:apiEndpoint]
                                                  encoding:NSASCIIStringEncoding
                                                     error:nil];
/* use shortURL */

Answer 3

Very Simple..

Try this sample.. Its working well for me.

Sample: URL Shortner in ios programatically

(Or)

Http Post Method via google api: http://www.warewoof.com/goo-gl-url-shortener-in-ios/

Answer 4

Here's a blog post on how to shorten a url using bit.ly

http://www.aproposmac.com/2012/01/shorten-url-using-bitly-in-objective-c.html

Answer 5

I just google a few minutes because I'm also interested in that topic. And I found this: TinyURL API I think that's the easiest way to implement something like this. I think I'll write a little class for this to use it in further projects. :-D

Answer 6

I use the below code.

    #define BITLY_LOGIN     @"pooja12"
    #define BITLY_APIKEY    @"R_c7045505f04343a7833721225740215c"
- (NSString *) shortURL {
        NSString *uri = [self absoluteString];
            NSString *fmt = [NSString stringWithFormat: @"http://api.bitly.com/v3/shorten?login=%@&apiKey=%@&longUrl=%@&format=txt", BITLY_LOGIN, BITLY_APIKEY, uri];
            NSURL *requestUrl = [NSURL URLWithString: fmt];
            //NSString *shortUri = [NSString stringWithContentsOfURL: requestUrl];
            //NSString *shortUri = [NSString stringWithContentsOfURL: requestUrl];
            NSError *error = nil;
            NSString *shortUri = [NSString stringWithContentsOfURL:requestUrl encoding:NSUTF8StringEncoding error:&error];
            shortUri = [shortUri stringByTrimmingCharactersInSet:[NSCharacterSet whitespaceAndNewlineCharacterSet]];
}
// here i call the above methods

      NSURL *shareUrl = [NSURL URLWithString:@"-url-"];
      NSString *shortenStr = [shareUrl shortURL];
      NSLog(@"Short url is %@", shortenStr);