This project is a URL shortener developed in Go, it's intended as a learning tool ratcher than a production level application. It showcases fundamental Go programming concepts, including HTTP request and response handling, database interactions, unit testing and dynamic configuration options.

• Understang Go's HTTP Package: Gain hands-on experience with creating web servers and handling requests/responses in Go.
• Database Interaction: Learn how to integrate and interact with a SQL database in a Go application.
• Unit Testing: Develop skills in writing testable code and understand testing strategies in Go.
• Code Refactoring: Continuously improve and refactor the codebase for better design and efficiency.

• Shorten URLs with simple HTTP requests.
• Redirect shortened URLs to their original destination.
• Basic database integration for storing the URL mappings.

Go > 1.16 is required to run this application. To start, simply clone the repository and run go run . in the root directory.

The application will run on port 8080 by default, but this can be changed by providing your own configuration file. If you wish to provide your own configurations, you can do so by providing an environment variable APP_ENV_PATH with the path to your configuration file. The configuration file should be in a .env format file, and should contain the following key-value pairs (default values shown):

BASE_URL=test_base_url
PORT=test_port
URL_SHORTENER_DB_PATH=test_url_shortener_db_path

As a learning project, contributions, suggestions and discussions are very much welcome. Feel free to open issues or pull requests to discuss potential improvements, or ways that I can improve.