RE: fw: questions about rfc 2396

Officially, there has been no update to the "file" URI specification
since RFC 1738.
(While some of the URI schemes defined in RFC 1738 have been updated,
many of them have not; that's why RFC 1738 isn't "obsoleted" yet.)
 
In RFC 1738's definition of "file:" URIs, there _must_ be a host field,
although the host can be omitted.  So, if you're asking
is it 'legal' to write 'file:/e:/xxx.pdf', the answer is no, not
according to RFC 1738, you must write
 
    file:///e:/xxx.pdf
 
which is valid.
 
The lack of updates to bring the RFC 1738 definitions more in keeping
with the actual implementations (including platform dependent
specifications for how to handle drive letters and UNC paths) is really
a shame.
 
I'll add this to the agenda for the upcoming URI BOF at the next IETF
meeting.
 
Larry
-- 
http://larry.masinter.net
 

-----Original Message-----
From: uri-request@w3.org [mailto:uri-request@w3.org] On Behalf Of Israel
Viente
Sent: Monday, February 24, 2003 11:47 PM
To: 'uri@w3.org'
Subject: re: fw: questions about rfc 2396



After all this discussion I still ask: 

Is it legal to write file uri like the following 

file:/e:/xxx.pdf 

or should it be file:/e%3a/xxx.pdf 

or both are valid ? 

Israel 

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