Re: Absolute "file:" URLs under Windows95

Maurizio Codogno <mau@beatles.cselt.it> said:
> > From: "Henrik Frystyk Nielsen" <frystyk@microsoft.com>
> > ... Personally I like file:/D:/foo instead of file:///D:/foo
> > as is in fact unambiguous (and legal) 
>
> One or two slashes between file: and D: ? (I think two)

It should normally be file://localhost/D:/foo and file:///D:/foo is just an
accepted shortcut (see section G.3 of RFC 2396). However, section 3 of 
RFC 2396 says:

  absoluteURI   = scheme ":" ( hier_part | opaque_part )
  hier_part     = ( net_path | abs_path ) [ "?" query ]
  net_path      = "//" authority [ abs_path ]
  abs_path      = "/"  path_segments

Therefore, if it were acceptable to have no explicit "authority" part in a 
"file:" URL (i.e. simple abs_path rather then net_path), the form 
file:/D:/foo would be legal. But this is not said anywhere explicitely.

Anyway, file://D:/foo would definitely be incorrect, as D: would be 
interpreted as the "authority" part, whereas the authority should either
be "localhost" or the actual machine name, not a drive letter.

Just my $0.02. Peace,

Bertrand Ibrahim.
--------------------------------------------
Bertrand.Ibrahim@cui.unige.ch
http://cui.unige.ch/eao/www/Bertrand.html

Received on Thursday, 9 March 2000 06:58:30 UTC