Back End Development and APIs Projects - URL Shortener Microservice

JavaScript
1

Tell us what’s happening:

Hi everyone,

I’m encountering an issue with my URL shortening microservice project. Everything works perfectly on my local machine and on Gitpod, but I’m running into an error when I run the validation tests on FreeCodeCamp.

The error message I receive is:
// running tests
2. You can POST a URL to /api/shorturl and get a JSON response with original_url and short_url properties. Here’s an example: { original_url : ‘https://freeCodeCamp.org’, short_url : 1}
3. When you visit /api/shorturl/

Below is the code for my project:

require('dotenv').config();
const express = require('express');
const bodyParser = require('body-parser');
const connectDB = require('./config/db');
const cors = require('cors');
const dns = require('dns');
const mongoose = require('mongoose');
const shortid = require('shortid');
const app = express();

app.use(express.json()); // Middleware to parse JSON data
app.use(express.urlencoded({ extended: false })); // Middleware to parse URL-encoded data
app.use(bodyParser.json());
// Basic Configuration
const port = process.env.PORT || 3000;

connectDB(); // Connect to the database

app.use(cors()); // Enable CORS

// Serve static files from the 'public' folder
app.use('/public', express.static(`${process.cwd()}/public`));

// Serve the main HTML page
app.get('/', (req, res) => {
  return res.sendFile(process.cwd() + '/views/index.html');
});

// Define URL schema for MongoDB
const urlSchema = new mongoose.Schema({
  original_url: { type: String, required: true },
  short_url: { type: String, required: true }
});

const Url = mongoose.model('Url', urlSchema);


// POST route to create a short URL
app.post('/api/shorturl', async (req, res) => {
  const { url: originalUrl } = req.body;

  try {
    // Parse and validate the URL
    const parsedUrl = new URL(originalUrl);
    const domain = parsedUrl.hostname;
    const protocol = parsedUrl.protocol;

    // Check if protocol is http or https
    if (protocol !== 'http:' && protocol !== 'https:') {
      return res.json({ error: 'invalid url' });
    }

    // Perform DNS lookup to check if domain is valid
    dns.lookup(domain, async (err) => {
      if (err) {
        return res.json({ error: 'invalid url' });
      }

      try {
        // Check if the original URL already exists in the database
        let existingUrl = await Url.findOne({ original_url: originalUrl });
        if (existingUrl) {
          return res.json({ original_url: existingUrl.original_url, short_url: existingUrl.short_url });
        }

        // Generate a new short URL using shortid
        const shortUrl = shortid.generate();
        const newUrl = new Url({
          original_url: originalUrl,
          short_url: shortUrl
        });

        // Save the new short URL to the database
        await newUrl.save();

        // Return the original and short URL
        return res.json({ original_url: newUrl.original_url, short_url: newUrl.short_url });
      } catch (err) {
        console.error('Database error:', err);
         res.status(500).json({ error: 'Server error' });
      }
    });
  } catch (err) {
    // Handle invalid URL format
    console.error('URL parsing error:', err);
    return res.json({ error: 'invalid url' });
  }
});

// GET route to redirect to the original URL
app.get('/api/shorturl/:short_url', async (req, res) => {
  const { short_url } = req.params;

  try {
    // Find the original URL by the short URL
    const url = await Url.findOne({ short_url });
    if (url) {
      // Redirect to the original URL
      return res.redirect(url.original_url);
    } else {
       res.status(404).json({ error: 'No URL found' });
    }
  } catch (err) {
    console.error('Database error:', err);
    return res.status(500).json({ error: 'Server error' });
  }
});

// Start the server
app.listen(port, () => {
  console.log(`Listening on port ${port}`);
});

###Your project link(s)

solution: https://freecodecam-boilerplate-45kgrq3mea2.ws-eu116.gitpod.io

I would greatly appreciate any help or guidance on how to resolve this issue. Thank you in advance!

Best regards,

Your browser information:

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Challenge Information:

Back End Development and APIs Projects - URL Shortener Microservice

2

Your code is passing for me with my own DB.

If you need more help, share a snapshot of your Gitpod workspace or post a GitHub repo.

3

I’m currently working on this challenge, and am wondering why the middleware on the POST and GET requests are mounted as async functions? Then it seems like each method call to the URL model needs an await?

4

please create your own topic to ask your questions