Tiny URL using PHP for auto-twitts

Question

I'm trying to implement auto post on Twitter using PHP.

But because of twitt's character limit I wanted to know how can I use tinyURL, instead of placing the full link, like http://www.appdropp.com/ios/stone-age-the-board-game/564247778

You see it's quite long...

I know services like:

• tinyurl.com
• goo.gl

But how can I use these services in bulk, to generate hundreds of links every day with PHP?

Answer 1

You can check Google API, but I'm not sure about that much bulk. I can suggest 3 solutions for you:

1. Create short links on your host using PHP.
2. Twitter will shorten the URL for you if you tweet DIRECTLY. But, you cannot do it using auto-posting. So, count characters (like message + URL <= 140) and keep your automatic tweets length less than 140 characters.

3. You can also try this (Check the PHP Source Code Example)

   function CompressURL($url) {
      $ch = curl_init();
      curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_URL, "http://"."to.ly/api.php?longurl=".urlencode($url));
      curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER,1);
      curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_HEADER, 0);
   
      $shorturl = curl_exec ($ch);
      curl_close ($ch);
   
      return $shorturl;
   }
   echo CompressURL("http://twitter.com"); // Test
   

Answer 2

Note that This method depends upon TinyURL page structure which may be changed in near future and don't use it in that much bulk Or ask them for API ?

You can use this way.

1. Encode your url.
   use urlencode
2. Add your encode url to
   $url='http://tinyurl.com/create.php?source=indexpage&url=<encoded url>
3. Create a dom object
   $doc=new DomDocuement();
4. Load the page.
   $doc->loadHTMLFile($url); // this is page containing shorten url
5. Grab the node that contains shorten url ..Second blockquote contains shorten url
   $nodelist=$doc->getElementsByTagName('blockquote');
$blockquote=$nodelist->item(1) // grabbing shorten url blockquote 0:first 1:second
6. Now Grab shorten url :
   $shorten_url=$blockquote->$firstChild->NodeValue

7. Use any where you like.

   For more info see tiny url page structure
   Read more about DOMDocument
   For goo.gl, read: https://developers.google.com/url-shortener