basic shortener implementation

shorten.py

def to_base(q, alphabet):
    if q < 0: raise ValueError, "must supply a positive integer"
    l = len(alphabet)
    converted = []
    while q != 0:
        q, r = divmod(q, l)
        converted.insert(0, alphabet[r])
    return "".join(converted) or '0'
  
 def to62(q):
     """Base 62 identifiers for integers based upon a random shuffling of string.letters + string.digits"""
     return to_base(q, '2FQYNEJAUsbGu41zndZTeocMai5H7OIjXkKg8qyt3WC9hLplxfVBm0wSRr6vPD')