Talk:Uniform Resource Locator
|
|
"To go to the homepage one usually just enters the domain name such as www.wikipedia.org. Sometimes, and also in this case, "www." can be omitted: wikipedia.org."
In what cases can "www" be omitted ? What is the difference between URLs having "www" and those that don't ? Jay 07:19, 21 Mar 2004 (UTC)
The first part of an HTTP URL consists of the DNS host name plus the domain name. In the case of "http://www.wikipedia.org/", the host name is "www" and the domain name is "wikipedia.org". When you enter this in a web browser, the browser typically uses the DNS resolver on your system to determine the IP address of host "www" in domain "wikipedia.org". If the DNS servers for domain wikipedia.org define an IP address for "wikipedia.org" or an alias for wikipedia.org that uses that same IP address as "www.wikipedia.org", then the leading "www" is not required since it will resolve in DNS to the same IP address. The requirement for the leading "www" is entirely dependent on how DNS is configured for that domain.
---
Apart from the possibility of a name being available in the DNS, many browsers actually do a number of heuristical modifications to the URL if it doesn't lead anywhere. Typically, a TLD (such as .com, org, etc) is appended to a name if it doesn't contain dots, and also a "www." can be prepended to it (thereby allowing you to type google in your browser and have it complete it to www.google.com. Some browsers can even be customized with details about this rewriting... -- Schnolle 16:48, 2004 Oct 24 (UTC)
Title says Uniform, first sentence says Universal....which is right? 41222-KenS
- Uniform is correct. Check some of the external links... Schnolle 10:01, 24 Dec 2004 (UTC)
New RFC
What about RFC 3987? --ajvol 08:40, 22 Apr 2005 (UTC)
- Irrelevant. RFC 3987 (IRI generic syntax) is essentially an extension to RFC 3986 (URI generic syntax), which supercedes the previous version, RFC 2396, which supercedes the RFCs that define URLs. As RFC 3305 (Aug 2002) explains, the term URL has effectively been obsolete for some time. The longevity of the term URL is attributable to a number of factors, not the least of which is horrible articles like this one. So if you're going to ask 'what about RFC ___?', you should probably ask 'how can we make this article better reflect the modern view of URL as being an informal term for a certain class of URIs, with respect to RFCs 2396, 3986, and 3305?' —mjb 01:37, 25 Apr 2005 (UTC)