base62

What

The base62 gem monkeypatches Integer and String. It creates an Integer#base62_encode instance method to encode integers into a string with this set of characters: 0-9 + A-Z + a-z. It also creates a String#base62_decode method to reverse the encoded string back into an integer.

I created this gem library to be the basis of a URL minifying product and service that I’ll release and host soon.

Installing

sudo gem install base62

The basics

puts 123456789.base62_encode # => "8M0kX"
puts "8M0kX".base62_decode # => 123456789

Developer’s Site

http://geekjacking.com/base62_gem

How to submit patches

Read the 8 steps for fixing other people’s code. It’s good, but doesn’t have instructions for GitHub, so come back here after you’re done and read on.

If you want to submit patches (or check out the code to see how to change from base 10 to base 62) the project code is on GitHub. Here are good instructions for submitting patches through GitHub: http://github.com/guides/fork-a-project-and-submit-your-modifications

• github: http://github.com/jtzemp/base62/tree/master

git clone git://github.com/jtzemp/base62.git

Build and test instructions

cd base62
rake test
rake install_gem

License

This code is free to use under the terms of the MIT license.

Contact

Comments are welcome. I’d love to know if you’re using it just out of curiosity. Send an email to JT dot Zemp at the domain thriveis.com, or go to http://geekjacking.com/base62_gem and leave a comment there.

JT Zemp (JT Zemp on Twitter), 6th October 2008
Theme extended from Paul Battley