Re: Extended URL for frames

In message <199609120154.SAA02538@cyprus.it.earthlink.net>, "David Perrell" wri
tes:
>There is some question as to whether URLs are 'intended' to reproduce
>state. Executables and server-side scripts can reproduce particular
>states via arguments appended to their URLs, and I've heard no
>complaint that this is bad behavior.

To my mind, yes: URL fragment identifiers are intended to capture
"state" or a "view" or the like.

>I propose an extension of the URL fragment specifier that will
>reproduce the state of frames for bookmarking or reference purposes.

Interesting.

>   main.html##[][][doc3a.html#here#[][doc3a-2a.html#there#]]
>
>Current browsers I have tested ignore all after the second #, so a
>legitimate fragment following main.html would still be valid.

Hmmm... I'm pretty sure I've seen implementations that scan
from the right for the first #, and consider that to be the
split between the URL and the fragment identifier.

For example, here's a snippet from urlparse.py, part of the
python distribution (www.python.org):

        if allow_framents and scheme in uses_fragment:
                i = string.rfind(url, '#')
                if i >= 0:
                        url, fragment = url[:i], url[i+1:]
 
Can you argue from the spec that this syntax is forwards-compatible
with old implementations?

I suspect that the syntax will have to avoid using more than one #
in order to really work.

Dan

Received on Sunday, 15 September 1996 11:43:11 UTC