QRCode shortener

This very small lib allows to generate a very simple and readable QRCode for a given URL. Under the hood, it shortens the url to a 4 characters url (use a small domain too) and generates a QRCode for it. This way, the QRCode is very small and can be printed on a small surface or scanned from a distance.

On top of that, you can access a very simple count stat on the QRCode usage.

Pre-requisites

• Node.js (LTS version recommended)
• Redis (LTS version recommended)

Installation

npm install

Run

pm2 is recommended to run the server in production. An ecosystem dist file is provided in the repository for file structure and variables.

pm2 start ecosystem.config.js

Usage

Shorten a URL

curl -X GET "http://localhost:3322/shorten?url=https://www.google.com"

Optional parameters:

• desiredShort: the desired short url. If not provided, a random 4 characters string will be generated.
• secureKey: the secret key to access the stats. If not provided, the stats will be public.

Example: http://localhost:3322/shorten?url=https://www.google.com&desiredShort=goog&secureKey=yourPublicKey

Register a secureKey

A secure key is used to generate short codes whose stats won't be public. To register a secure key, use the following command:

curl -X POST "http://localhost:3322/secure" -d "key=yourPublicKey&secret=yourSecretKey" -H "Content-Type: application/x-www-form-urlencoded" -H "Accept: application/json"

Register it once, and use secureKey=yourPublicKey on each request to generate a short code. To retrieve stats of a shortcode, use secret=yourSecretKey as the secret key.

Get shortcode stats

curl -X GET "http://localhost:3322/stats?{short}+"

Use the shortcode you want to get the stats from, followed by a + sign.

Optional parameters:

• secret: the secret key to access the stats if the shortcode is secured

Dynamically generate a QRCode

<a href="http://localhost:3322/qrcode?url=https://www.google.com">

Optional parameters:

• desiredShort: the desired short url. If not provided, a random 4 characters string will be generated.
• size: the size of the QRCode. Default is 512x512.
• quality: the quality of the QRCode (L, M, H). Default is M.
• output: the output format of the QRCode (png, data). Default is png.
• secureKey: the secret key used to secure the shortcode stats

Example: http://localhost:3322/qrcode?url=https://www.google.com&desiredShort=goog&size=256x256&quality=H&output=data&secureKey=yourPublicKey