By: Alex Fraundorf

Skydiver,
Thanks for reading and for the comment. Your solution would certainly work. The reason I didn’t use a process like that is because it would require a conversion every time a shortened URL is looked up. I opted for a little extra processing when the shortened URL is being created and less every time it is being retrieved, as I was expecting far more retrievals than creations. I think it is more a matter of preference than anything else.
Thanks for the feedback and happy PHPing!