url-formats

<entry-title>URL formats</entry-title>

URLs are often defined and represented in various systems as a set of various pieces/parts. This page documents the implicit formats from those systems.

URL specification

The URL specification is perhaps the most canonical source for the names of the different parts of a URL.

1994 http://www.w3.org/Addressing/URL/url-spec.txt

Names are quoted literally, dropping any "The" prefix and "part" suffix.

• PrePrefix - e.g. "URL:". The portion before the "http".
• Scheme - e.g. "http"
• :
• Internet protocol parts
  • // (until the following /)
  • user name (if present, followed by an @ after optional password (see next field)).
  • password (if present, preceded by a :)
  • internet domain name - e.g. "www.w3.org"
  • port number (if present, preceded by a :)
• Path
  • search
• fragmentid - "the hash sign and following"

HTTP

The HTTP specification has a few notes about the format/portions of HTTP URLs.

1996 http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc1945.txt - 3.2.1 General Syntax

• URI
  • absoluteURI
    • scheme
    • :
    • relativeURI
      • net_path
        • //
        • net_loc
        • abs_path
          • /
          • rel_path
            • path
              • fsegment
              • segment (zero or more, if present, preceded by /)
            • params (if present, preceded by ;)
            • query (if present, preceded by ?)
  • fragment (if present, preceded by #)

Also:

• http_URL
  • http://
  • host
  • port (if present, preceded by :)
  • abs_path (as defined above)

Canonicalization:

• host is lowercased
• :port is omitted if the port is 80
• empty abs_path is replaced with /

related

• url