RE: ``canonical'' root URL of a server?

In general, URLs do _not_ have a canonical form. However, HTTP
defines some equivalences for URLs (e.g., that http://host is 
equivalent to http://host/, and by using the generic
syntax for host names, the host part is case insensitive).

Some particular HTTP servers MAY define other equivalences,
e.g., that http://host/dir is equivalent to http://host/dir/
and to http://host/dir/index.html.

I'm less sure how equivalence is turned into canonicalization for
the purpose of creating a 'canonical root', though.

Larry
--
http://www.parc.xerox.com/masinter
 

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Paul Leach [mailto:paulle@microsoft.com]
> Sent: Tuesday, April 07, 1998 1:35 PM
> To: 'David W. Morris'; http-wg@cuckoo.hpl.hp.com
> Cc: http-wg@cuckoo.hpl.hp.com
> Subject: RE: ``canonical'' root URL of a server?
> 
> 
> I thought URLs had a caonical form -- bad chars coverted to %xx, etc. Maybe
> it's in the URL RFC?
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: David W. Morris [mailto:dwm@xpasc.com]
> Sent: Friday, April 03, 1998 3:55 PM
> 
> Might be an artifact of moving the syntactical definition of a URL to be a
> reference so that the definition of canonical got lost?
> 
> Dave Morris
> 
> 
> On Fri, 3 Apr 1998 Mike_Spreitzer.PARC@xerox.com wrote:
> 
> > What is the significance of including the word ``canonical'' in the
> following
> > sentence in draft-ietf-http-authentication-01 section 1.2?  The cited
> section
> > of the HTTP/1.1 draft defines the "root" URL of a server, but the word
> > canonical doesn't appear there.  Is this an editorial bug in one spec or
> the
> > other?
> > 
> > ``The realm value (case-sensitive), in combination with the canonical root
> URL
> > (see section 5.1.2 of [2]) of the server being accessed, defines the
> protection
> > space.''
> > 
> > 
> 
>

Received on Wednesday, 8 April 1998 03:27:40 UTC