Difference between revisions of "Uniform Resource Locator"

Revision as of 11:28, 9 September 2015

A uniform resource locator (URL) is a reference to a resource that specifies the location of the resource on a computer network, and a mechanism for retrieving it.

(TO DO: expand, organize, cross-reference, illustrate.)

A typical URL has the form:

http://www.example.com/index.html

The above example indicates:

Note that web servers commonly recognize index.html as a default file name. On such servers, this URL behaves exactly the same:

http://www.example.com

The URL also behaves the same with a forward slash, which many web servers automatically use:

http://www.example.com/

A URL is a specific type of uniform resource identifier (URI). Many people use the two terms interchangeably.

A URL implies the means to access an indicated resource, which is not true of every URI.

URLs occur most commonly to reference web pages (http), but are also used for file transfer (FTP), email (mailto), database connectivity, and many other applications.

Most web browsers display the URL of a web page above the page in an address bar.

@@ Line 15: / Line 15: @@
 * The specific [[web page]] ('''index.html''')
-Web servers commonly recognize ''index.html'' as a [[default file name]].
+Note that web servers commonly recognize ''index.html'' as a [[default file name]].  On such servers, this URL behaves exactly the same:
+<code><nowiki>http://www.example.com</nowiki></code>
+The URL also behaves the same with a forward slash, which many web servers automatically use:
+<code><nowiki>http://www.example.com/</nowiki></code>
 == URL is specific type of URI ==