Re: 4.5. Interfaces for URI manipulation

On Aug 16, 2007, at 7:19 AM, Ben Boyle wrote:

>
> http://dev.w3.org/html5/spec/Overview.html#interfaces
>
> I would like to see URI attribute names matching the names given those
> components in the URI spec:
> http://gbiv.com/protocols/uri/rfc/rfc3986.html#components
>
> protocol -> scheme
> userInformation (new)
> hostname -> host
> port (no change)
> host -> authority (includes userInformation in addition to host:port)
> pathname -> path
> search -> query
> hash -> fragment
>
> I've no idea where the terms in the HTML5 draft come from (if they
> come from a meaningful source, a reference to that would be useful).

I agree with you that the new names would be better in theory.  
However, the existing names are already widely implemented in browsers  
on HTMLAnchorElement and Location, and have been for a long time.  
These URL component attributes are pretty rarely used; location.search  
and location.hash are probably the only ones with really significant  
use.

The question is whether duplicates with better names add enough to be  
worth it. I think the answer is probably no.

> I don't mind if there are duplicates e.g. if "search" and "query" are
> both attributes and mean the same. Unfortunately "host" will be a
> problem.
>
> Is there a legacy issue with implementations already using this
> terminology? I suspect there is.

Bingo. I'm not sure whether Netscape or Microsoft invented it first,  
but the rest of us have copied.

Regards,
Maciej

Received on Thursday, 16 August 2007 16:05:34 UTC