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 /

CGI

Common Gateway Interface, specifically, Environment Variables 1999?

• http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc3875
• http://www.citycat.ru/doc/CGI/overview/env.html
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_Gateway_Interface - has example:

http://example.com/cgi-bin/printenv.pl/ponylove?q=20%C001er&moar=kitties

Terms:

• script-URI
  • scheme same as SERVER_PROTOCOL
  • ://
  • server-name - SERVER_NAME
  • :
  • server-port - SERVER_PORT
  • script-path same as SCRIPT_NAME
  • extra-path same as PATH_INFO
  • ?
  • query-string - QUERY_STRING

Environment variables:

• SERVER_PROTOCOL - not the protocol scheme, e.g. "HTTP/1.1"
• HTTP_HOST or SERVER_NAME - e.g "example.com"
• SERVER_PORT - e.g. "80"
• REMOTE_USER - the username (but not password)
• PATH - not the URL path, but to the web server on the system
• REQUEST_URI - e.g. "/cgi-bin/printenv.pl/ponylove?q=20%C001er&moar=kitties"
  • SCRIPT_NAME - e.g. "/cgi-bin/printenv.pl"
  • PATH_INFO - e.g. "/ponylove"
  • QUERY_STRING - e.g. "q=20%C001er&moar=kitties"

DOM

• https://developer.mozilla.org/en/DOM/window.location#Properties

The window.location object represent the URL of the window's page and thus also has properties (terms) for the different parts/pieces.

Properties:

• protocol - e.g. "http:"
• host - e.g. "www.example.com:80"
  • hostname - e.g. "www.example.com"
  • port - e.g. "80"
• pathname - e.g. "/search"
• search - e.g. "?q=devmo"
• hash - e.g. "#test"

Googler

Per Matt Cutts's blog post Talk like a Googler: parts of a url: of for example:

http://video.google.co.uk:80/videoplay?docid=-7246927612831078230&hl=en#00h02m30s

Parts of a url:

• protocol - e.g. "http"
• host or hostname - e.g. "video.google.co.uk"
  • subdomain - e.g. "video"
  • domain name - e.g. "google.co.uk"
  • top-level domain or TLD - e.g. "uk" (which in this case is also referred to as a country-code top-level domain or ccTLD.
• port - e.g. "80"
• path - e.g. "/videoplay"
• parameters - e.g. "?docid=-7246927612831078230&hl=en"
  • parameter - e.g. "docid" with value "-7246927612831078230"
• fragment or named anchor - e.g. "#00h02m30s"

related

• url