WWW::Shorten(3)

NAME
WWW::Shorten - Interface to URL shortening sites.

SYNOPSIS
  use WWW::Shorten 'Linkz';
  use WWW::Shorten 'MakeAShorterLink';
  use WWW::Shorten 'NotLong';
  use WWW::Shorten 'OneShortLink';
  use WWW::Shorten 'Shorl';
  use WWW::Shorten 'TinyClick';
  use WWW::Shorten 'TinyLink';
  use WWW::Shorten 'TinyURL';

  # Individual modules have have their
  # own syntactic variations.

  # See the documentation for the particular
  # module you intend to use for details, trips
  # and traps.

  $short_url = makeashorterlink($long_url);

  $long_url  = makealongerlink($short_url);

  # If you don't like the function names:
  use WWW::Shorten 'TinyURL', ':short';
  $short_url = short_link( $long_url );
  $long_url = long_link( $short_url );

ABSTRACT
A Perl interface to URL shortening sites. These sites maintain databases of long URLs, each of which has a unique identifier.

DESCRIPTION
The function "makeashorterlink" will call the relevant web site passing it your long URL and will return the shorter version.

The function "makealongerlink" does the reverse. "makealongerlink" will accept as an argument either the full shortened URL or just the identifier.

If anything goes wrong, then either function will return "undef".

Subroutines

  import
Called when the module is "use"d. Loads the correct sub-module

  EXPORT
makeashorterlink, makealongerlink

Or, if you specify ":short" on the import line, you instead get "short_link" and "long_link". If you explicitly want the default set, use ":default".

Actually these functions are exported from the relevant subclass.

COMMAND LINE PROGRAM
A very simple program called shorten is supplied in the distribution's bin folder. This program takes a URL and gives you a shortened version of it.

EXAMPLES and PROGRAMS
Adam Kessel wrote shorlfilter, a program that uses "WWW::Shorten" to filter a file, converting long URLs to short ones.

    http://bostoncoop.net/adam/shorlfilter

There is also a bin directory in this distribution which contains a sample program.

NO LONGER SUPPORTED
The URL-shortening industry is pretty volatile. Many sites exist for a while and then go away. The most famous of those is probably Make A Shorter Link (the site that originally inspired this suite of modules). MASL has been acquired by TinyURL.com and no longer exists.

Here is a list of sites that were once supported by this module and are no longer with us:

MakeAShorterLink
BabyURL
EkDk
Metamark
qURL (although the differently capitalised Qurl.com now uses their old domain)
ShortLink
SmLnk
URLjr
V3

See Joshua Schachter's blog entry at <http://joshua.schachter.org/2009/04/on-url-shorteners.html> for some very interesting discussion on some problems that can be caused by the volatility of this part of the web industry.

RELATED MODULES

  Similar Aim
WWW::MakeAShorterLink is what this module was originally based upon. That module is obsoleted by WWW::Shorten::MakeAShorterLink, one of the many subclasses of WWW::Shorten. Of course, with the demise of Make A Shorter Link, neither the obsolete module nor its replacement are of any use.

  Same Area, Different Purpose
CGI::Shorten provides building blocks for you to create your own URL shortening service. It provides routines to shorten a URL, lengthen one, and it keeps a store. Nice and easy.

THANKS
Dave Cross for WWW::MakeAShorterLink

Alex Page for the original LWP hacking on which Dave based his code.

Simon Batistoni for giving the "makealongerlink" idea to Dave.

Eric Hammond for writing the NotLong variant.

Shashank Tripathi <shank@shank.com> for providing both SnipURL.com and advice on the module.

Kevin Gilbertson (Gilby) supplied information on the TinyURL API.

Matt Felsen (mattf) wanted shorter function names.

Ask Bjoern Hansen for providing both Metamark.net and advice on the module.

Martin Thurn for helping me notice a bug and for a suggestion regarding MASL.pm.

Jon and William (jon and wjr at smlnk.com respectively) for providing SmLnk.com.

P J Goodwin for providing the code for WWW::Shorten::OneShortLink.

And especial thanks to all providers of these services.

BUGS, REQUESTS, COMMENTS
Support for this module is supplied using the CPAN RT system via the web or email:

    http://rt.cpan.org/NoAuth/ReportBug.html?Queue=WWW-Shorten
    ( shorter URL: http://xrl.us/rfb )

    bug-www-shorten@rt.cpan.org

This makes it much easier for me to track things and thus means your problem is less likely to be neglected.

LICENCE AND COPYRIGHT
WWW::Shorten::NotLong copyright (c) Eric Hammond <ehammond@thinksome.com>.

Other modules copyright (c) Magnum Solutions Ltd., 2007. All rights reserved.

This module is free software. You can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the Artistic License 2.0.

This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but without any warranty; without even the implied warranty of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose.

AUTHOR
Original Iain Truskett <spoon@cpan.org>

Based on WWW::MakeAShorterLink by Dave Cross <dave@mag-sol.com>

In 2004 Dave Cross took over the maintenance of this distribution following the death of Iain Truskett.

SEE ALSO
perl, CGI::Shorten.