Expurrel¶ ↑

Expurrel is a library that does short url decoding for each url shortener service. It supports most of the tiny url providers by doing a request to the tiny url provider and getting back the redirect code. Expurrel tries to be fast by also doing some simple caching.

To install expurrel:

gem install expurrel

e = Expurrel.new('http://bit.ly/aanv6P')
e.decode == 'http://www.jaapvandermeer.com/2010/02/12/introducing-myself/'

The cache size is standard 1000 urls, to make it bigger:

Expurrel.cache = SimpleCache.new(:max_size => 10000)

Standard there is a list of about 200 providers. If one is missing, please add it to urlshorteners.txt or let me know by adding a issue.

e = Expurrel.PROVIDERS << 'bit.ly'

The source is maintained here:

github.com/japetheape/expurrel

An introductory post is here:

www.jaapvandermeer.com/2010/02/13/expurrel-a-library-to-decode-short-urls-in-ruby

• Fork the project.

• Make your feature addition or bug fix.

• Add tests for it. This is important so I don’t break it in a future version unintentionally.

• Commit, do not mess with rakefile, version, or history. (if you want to have your own version, that is fine but bump version in a commit by itself I can ignore when I pull)

• Send me a pull request. Bonus points for topic branches.

Copyright © 2010 Jaap van der Meer. See LICENSE for details.