Anon84 on Ask HN: Review a simple URL un-shortening service.

Comment on Ask HN: Review a simple URL un-shortening service.parent

I can see several reasons for this:

1 - Build a database of short to unshortened URLs as a backup in case that one of the shortening services goes under.

2 - Such a service can be useful for anyone who wants to know where the URL points to without clicking it (or without the skills to unshorten it themselves).

3 - It could allow for batch unshortening

4 - A database can still unshorten URLs that no longer exist etc..

sundarurfriend 17y

> for [anyone] without the skills to unshorten it themselves

I think I'm one, because I don't know of any way to unshorten these tiny URLs without visiting them or using some such service.

If you know of one, could you enlighten me? Thanks...

Anon84 17y

It's really not hard. For example, on the command line:

     $ curl -I http://tinyurl.com/9a4xj6
     HTTP/1.1 301 Moved Permanently
     X-Powered-By: PHP/5.2.8
     Location: http://www.hostingcoupons.org/godaddy-coupons/
     Content-type: text/html
     Date: Fri, 24 Apr 2009 21:26:48 GMT
     Server: TinyURL/1.6

or in Python:

     >>> import urllib
     >>> u=urllib.urlopen("http://tinyurl.com/9a4xj6")
     >>> u.url
     'http://www.hostingcoupons.org/godaddy-coupons/'
     >>>

etc...

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