To optimize the length of URLs, consider creating your own unique "timestamp" format that allows you to customize the granularity and offset according to your specific requirements.
For instance, if the dates you are working with typically revolve around the current date and require only the date without the time, you could represent them as the number of days in the past rather than the number of seconds since 1970 like in the UNIX timestamp system.
Below is a comparison between a date range displayed using Unix timestamps and the alternative method:
Date range: 2012-09-21 to 2013-01-10
Timestamp: 1348178400_1357772400
Days in past: 156_45
I used the underscore _
to separate the from and to components, as the hyphen -
is reserved for dates preceding 1970 or future dates in the UNIX system, but not in my custom encoding.
This is only a demonstration. You should devise an encoding method that meets the specific requirements of your application. For example, for a narrow date range, you could represent it as a date along with a specific increment, whether in days, months, or even years, depending on your particular needs.