As of the v3 refactor how you interact with chr (as a sysadmin) has changed significantly. You still install it via PyPI (TODO, updated version not up yet), but you'll have to run it with something like gunicorn rather than via a command line script explicity for chr.

For now:

• Clone the repo
• python setup.py install
• Check example.py (and the docs!) for more info on how to run it.
• Use a command like: gunicorn -b 127.0.0.1:5000 -p /tmp/chr.pid example:app

If you want to get the statistics of a given URL in JSON format, you can simply smack .json on the end of the stats url (http://example.org/x/stats.json) and get back some lovely JSON.

If the URL doesn't exist you'll get back something with error: true, and a message field - check it and you're good.

TODO:

• [ ] add an API endpoint to shorten/expand URLs (check out wtforms-json or something)
  • [ ] rather than half-baked @app.route calls, make an API blueprint
  • [ ] add API keys so even if reCAPTCHA is enabled you can use it
• [x] update the docs to the new chrso tree
• [ ] update the screenshots in the repo
• [ ] update chrw (oooold) so that it works with chrso tree
• [x] remove some base62 crud
• [x] write a decent install/running guide (new docs)
• [ ] write a migration script for chru -> chrso trees
  • [ ] move chr.so over to the latest chrso tree and link back there
  • [ ] put this code tree on PyPI and explain changes in big bold font
• [ ] provide example nginx (+ Apache/lighttpd?) configs
• [ ] make url.stats() cache the results at redis for a few (5?) minutes
  • alternatively, we could implement If-Modified-Since, but that'd be tougher.

chr (found in the package chrso) is a Python based URL shortening service which uses Flask as a front end, and redis as the backend.

It can shrink billions of unique URLs with less than 6 characters, run in the background with no human interaction, and it can fly like a bird -- or is that Super Man?

• Can shorten several billion (yes!) unique urls to a less than 6 character slug.
• Can use reCAPTCHA to stop spammers from using the service for evil. (but it's optional!)
• A live chr instance is located at uguu.us. (NB: chr.so is the old source tree)

These are varying at the moment! Check requirements.txt to see a list.

To install all of these: pip -r requirements.txt install

• It's highly recommended by the chr developers that if you're putting this in a production environment (read: any computer with a public IP) that you look at the various Flask deployment options, such as putting it behind nginx, lighttpd, or something.
• It's also recommended that you get your server (nginx, lighttpd, or hell, even Apache) serve out the static folder, rather than letting Flask do it.
• This will take a while to get fully featured, but we have a lot planned.
• jqPlot comes bundled with chr, which is alright as it's MIT licensed.
• tipsy is also bundled, again, MIT licensed.

To use reCAPTCHA, you have to set two fields in the Flask app's config before you run it:

• RECAPTCHA_PUBLIC_KEY - what it says on the tin
• RECAPTCHA_PRIVATE_KEY - also what it says on the tin

Check example.py to see how.

• plausibility

• huey
• Chris Leonello (made jqPlot)
• jaz303 (made tipsy)
• aki--aki convinced me to add JSON-y API stuff