Links · About URIs · History
(also RFC 3305 (informational))
Work on RFC 2396 update (to IETF Standard)
The Web is an information space. Human beings have a lot of mental machinery for manipulating, imagining, and finding their way in spaces. URIs are the points in that space.
Unlike web data formats, where HTML is an important one, but not the only one, and web protocols, where HTTP has a similar status, there is only one Web naming/addressing technology: URIs.
Uniform Resource Identifiers (URIs, aka URLs) are short strings that identify resources in the web: documents, images, downloadable files, services, electronic mailboxes, and other resources. They make resources available under a variety of naming schemes and access methods such as HTTP, FTP, and Internet mail addressable in the same simple way. They reduce the tedium of "log in to this server, then issue this magic command ..." down to a single click.
It is an extensible technology: there are a number of existing addressing schemes, and more may be incorporated over time.
This is a publication history, or bibliography collected from IETF documents and W3C Technical Reports as well as a record of events.
RFC 2141 R. Moats
Relative Uniform Resource Locators R. Fielding
Abstract:
... When embedded within a base document, a URL in its absolute form may contain a great deal of information which is already known from the context of that base document's retrieval, including the scheme, network location, and parts of the url-path. In situations where the base URL is well-defined and known to the parser (human or machine), it is useful to be able to embed URL references which inherit that context rather than re-specifying it in every instance.
This one is both authoritative (i.e. it's been through the IETF proposed standard process) and accurate on the matter of the syntax of URLs. Its grammar is complete and consistent, and there are several clarifying examples.
On the other hand, it does not discuss any of the actual URL schemes (such as HTTP, FTP, ...)
Uniform Resource Locators (URL) T. Berners-Lee, L. Masinter, M. McCahill
Abstract:
This document specifies a Uniform Resource Locator (URL), the syntax and semantics of formalized information for location and access of resources via the Internet.
This one is ratified as an IETF proposed standard, and it discusses each of the URL schemes (known at that time), but its grammar has some mistakes, and it doesn't cover several aspects of URL syntax, such as relative URLs and fragment identifiers
Functional Requirements for Uniform Resource Names , K. Sollins, L. Masinter
Abstract:
This document specifies a minimum set of requirements for a kind of Internet resource identifier known as Uniform Resource Names (URNs). ...
See also: