Call Google Tiny URL API in MATLAB

Hi everyone,

I am trying to call Google URL Shortener API https://developers.google.com/url-shortener/v1/getting_started#actions in MATLAB to shorten an URL. I know that I can go to https://goo.gl/ and manually paste the long URL into the text box. But I am wondering if I can do that programatically in MATLAB.

I know very little about web programming and this is as far as I can get,

options = weboptions('RequestMethod','post');
data = webread('https://www.googleapis.com/urlshortener/v1/url', 'longUrl', 'http://www.google.com/', options)

Error using readContentFromWebService (line 45)
The server returned the status 400 with message "Bad Request" in response to the request to URL    https://www.googleapis.com/urlshortener/v1/url.

Error in webread (line 122)
[varargout{1:nargout}] = readContentFromWebService(connection, options);

Answer 1

[Chi]

First, you should have a URL shortener API key. It can be generated in the Google Credentials page .

Then, the matlab code:

 url='https://www.googleapis.com/urlshortener/v1/url?key={yours}';
 options = weboptions('RequestMethod','post', 'MediaType','application/json');
 Body = struct('longUrl', 'http://www.google.com/');
 response = webwrite(url, Body, options);

[Kevin]

Hi Chi,

Thank you very much for your suggestion. I followed your instruction to click the link "Google Credentials page" to create the key. I got the key and tried out the following MATLAB code. But I got error message from Google.

key      = 'this_is_not_the_real_key';
url      = ['https://www.googleapis.com/urlshortener/v1/url?key=', key];
options  = weboptions('RequestMethod', 'post', 'MediaType', 'application/json');
Body     = struct('longUrl', 'http://www.google.com/');
response = webwrite(url, Body, options);

Error using readContentFromWebService (line 46)
The server returned the status 403 with message "Forbidden" in response 
to the request to URL https://www.googleapis.com/urlshortener/v1/url?
key=this_is_not_the_real_key.

Seems to me that the key (that I copy-and-paste from Google) does not work. I already set the key to "unrestricted" in Google page.

Kevin