PHP Class Create Short URL via TinyURL, Is.gd, Hex.io, Tr.im & Bit.ly API

Short URL is commonly used today for several reasons: avoid url garbling, take smallest space especially for long url which need to be posted at limited space format eg: twitter, also often used to manipulate user for specific purposes eg: hiding orginal url for phising and ads/affiliation links.

There are many websites that provide shortening url services, tinyurl, bit.ly, hex.io are some of them, below is simple PHP script as an implementation to use their API, create short url on the fly, currently support: tinyURL, bit.ly, is.gd, tr.im and hex.io, but you can easily add other providers.

PHP Class

<?php
/*
** Title: Shortening URL Class
** Author: chazzuka <ariel@chazzuka.com>
** Author URL: http://www.chazzuka.com
** Latest Updated: September 24 2009
*/
class ShortUrl {

	public static function create($url,$provider='tinyurl',$user='',$key='') {
		$api_url = sprintf(self::api($provider),urlencode($url),$user,$key);
		return self::inspect($provider,self::execute($api_url));
	}

	private static function execute($url) {
		$ch = curl_init();
		curl_setopt ($ch, CURLOPT_URL, $url);
		curl_setopt ($ch, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, 1);
		curl_setopt ($ch, CURLOPT_CONNECTTIMEOUT, 5);
		$text = curl_exec($ch);
		curl_close($ch);
		return $text;
	}

	private static function inspect($provider,$xml) {
		if(!empty($xml)) {
			switch(strtolower(trim($provider))){
				case "bitly":
					$o = new SimpleXMLElement($xml);
					return (string)$o->results->nodeKeyVal->shortUrl;
					break;
				case "trim":
					$o = new SimpleXMLElement($xml);
					return (string)$o->url;
					break;
				case "isgd":
				case "hexio":
				default:
					return $xml;
			}
		}
		return false;
	}

	private static function api($provider) {
		switch(strtolower(trim($provider))){
			case "bitly":
				$return = "http://api.bit.ly/shorten?version=2.0.1&format=xml&longUrl=%s&login=%s&apiKey=%s";
				break;
			case "isgd":
				$return = "http://is.gd/api.php?longurl=%s";
				break;
			case "hexio":
				$return = "http://hex.io/api-create.php?url=%s";
				break;
			case "digg":
				$return = "http://services.digg.com/url/short/create?url=%s&appkey=%s&type=xml";
				break;
			case "trim":
				$return = "http://api.tr.im/v1/trim_url.xml?url=%s";
				break;
			default:
				$return = "http://tinyurl.com/api-create.php?url=%s";
		}
		return $return;
	}
}
?>

Sample of usage:

<?php
$url = 'http://www.chazzuka.com/blog/?p=192';
echo ShortUrl::create($url,'trim');
echo '<hr />';
echo ShortUrl::create($url,'tinyurl');
echo '<hr />';
echo ShortUrl::create($url,'isgd');
echo '<hr />';
echo ShortUrl::create($url,'hexio');
echo '<hr />';
echo ShortUrl::create($url,'bitly','your_user_name','your_api_key');
?>