Ideas Insights

[nasrulhazim]

1. Rate Limiting

Purpose:

• To prevent abuse (e.g., spamming requests to shorten URLs or resolve them).
• Ensure fair usage across users and protect system resources.

Implementation:

• Use Laravel’s rate limiting middleware to throttle API calls.
• Example: Limit a user to 10 requests per minute for creating shortened URLs.

Route::middleware('throttle:10,1')->group(function () {
    Route::post('/shorten', [ShrinkrController::class, 'shorten']);
});

Expected Results:

• Prevents abuse by limiting the number of requests in a given time window.
• Improves performance by controlling traffic spikes.
• Provides better service availability to all users.

Best Practice:

• Use different rate limits for anonymous users vs. authenticated users.
• Return meaningful error messages (e.g., 429 Too Many Requests) when limits are exceeded.

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2. Protected URLs

Purpose:

• Add password protection or other access restrictions to certain URLs, ensuring only authorized users can access the content.

Implementation:

• Store a password hash with the URL.
• Prompt users for a password before redirecting to the original URL.

if (!Hash::check($inputPassword, $url->password)) {
    return response('Unauthorized', 401);
}

Expected Results:

• Sensitive URLs can only be accessed by people with the correct credentials.
• Prevents unauthorized access to private or confidential links.

Best Practice:

• Use hashed passwords instead of storing plain-text passwords.
• Add rate limiting for failed password attempts to mitigate brute-force attacks.

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3. QR Codes

Purpose:

• Provide users with QR codes for easy sharing of URLs, especially on mobile devices.

Implementation:

• Use libraries like endroid/qr-code or Simple QrCode to generate QR codes.
• Example QR Code generation:

use SimpleSoftwareIO\QrCode\Facades\QrCode;

$qrCode = QrCode::size(300)->generate($shortUrl);

Expected Results:

• Enhanced usability: Users can scan QR codes to access links quickly.
• Improved mobile experience, making it easy to share links in the real world (e.g., posters, flyers).

Best Practice:

• Provide downloadable QR codes for users.
• Cache QR codes to reduce generation time on repeated requests.

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4. Link Health Monitoring

Purpose:

• Ensure that the original URLs are still reachable and valid.
• Automatically disable or notify users if a link becomes broken or inactive.

Implementation:

• Use a scheduled job to check the health of URLs via HTTP status codes (like 200 OK or 404 Not Found).

public function checkUrlHealth(Url $url)
{
    $response = Http::get($url->original_url);
    return $response->ok();
}

• Schedule this job using Laravel’s scheduler (app/Console/Kernel.php):

$schedule->call([ShrinkrController::class, 'checkAllUrls'])->daily();

Expected Results:

• Early detection of broken or expired URLs.
• Automatically disable or alert users when URLs are no longer accessible.
• Improved user experience, ensuring shared links remain valid.

Best Practice:

• Batch requests to avoid overloading the system.
• Notify users via email or webhooks if their URLs are inactive.

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5. Event & Listeners

Purpose:

• Improve system decoupling by using events to trigger actions asynchronously (e.g., logging clicks, sending notifications).

Implementation:

• Define events such as UrlCreated, UrlAccessed, UrlExpired.
• Create listeners to log events, send notifications, or dispatch jobs.

php artisan make:event UrlAccessed
php artisan make:listener LogUrlAccess

• Event Example (UrlAccessed.php):

namespace CleaniqueCoders\Shrinkr\Events;

use Illuminate\Foundation\Events\Dispatchable;

class UrlAccessed
{
    use Dispatchable;

    public $url;

    public function __construct($url)
    {
        $this->url = $url;
    }
}

• Listener Example (LogUrlAccess.php):

namespace CleaniqueCoders\Shrinkr\Listeners;

use Illuminate\Support\Facades\Log;

class LogUrlAccess
{
    public function handle($event)
    {
        Log::info('URL accessed', ['url' => $event->url->shortened_url]);
    }
}

• Register Events & Listeners (EventServiceProvider.php):

protected $listen = [
    UrlAccessed::class => [
        LogUrlAccess::class,
    ],
];

Expected Results:

• Improved code maintainability by decoupling logic into event listeners.
• Better system performance by handling tasks asynchronously (e.g., logging).
• Easily extendable: Add new listeners without changing the core logic.

Best Practice:

• Use queues for time-consuming listeners (like sending notifications).
• Keep listeners focused on a single responsibility.

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Summary

Feature	Expected Outcome	Best Practice
Rate Limiting	Prevent abuse, ensure fair usage, improve performance	Different limits for guests and authenticated users
Protected URLs	Restrict access to sensitive links	Use hashed passwords and limit login attempts
QR Codes	Enhance usability for mobile users	Cache QR codes for performance, allow download option
Link Health Monitoring	Ensure shared links are valid and accessible	Batch requests, notify users if URLs are inactive
Events & Listeners	Decouple logic, improve maintainability, and performance	Use queues for time-consuming tasks