[10988] in www-talk@info.cern.ch
Re: URL specification: referring to the current directory.
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Al Gilman)
Fri Sep 12 13:28:43 1997
From: Al Gilman <asgilman@access.digex.net>
To: lisbk@ukoln.ac.uk (Brian Kelly)
Date: Fri, 12 Sep 1997 12:48:03 -0400 (EDT)
Cc: advax@triumf.ca, www-talk@w3.org
In-Reply-To: <Pine.SOL.3.93.970912161301.24836H-100000@lamin> from Brian Kelly at "Sep 12, 97 04:18:15 pm"
Resent-From: www-talk@w3.org
to follow up on what Brian Kelly said:
>
> The original posting was concerned with how a <A > element should refer
> to the default file in a directory e.g. are
>
> <A HREF = "./">The default file in the current directory</A>
> <A HREF = "index.html">The default file in the current directory</A>
>
> equivalent.
>
The last time I knew the answer to this question, it was that
they are not equivalent. The association of a default file with
the directory was a server function, and not bound to the name
index.html across all servers. Has this practice been
standardized since?
The difference is subtle, but it is a little like how some URLs
point to a location where you regularly update the content and
other URLs point to locations where the content is frozen.
> How should one refer to an internal anchor in such a file. Are
>
> <A HREF="./#section1>An internal anchor in the default file</A>
> <A HREF="index.html#section1>An internal anchor in the default file</A>
>
> equivalent, or with browsers or other user agents treat #section1 as a
> filename?
>
If your server serves index.html as the default file when a
directory is addressed in a the Location of a GET request, then
they are equivalent.
If they follow RFC 1808 they will never treat #section1 as a
filename. They have to strip that before seeking a filename.
See also the updated writeup in the Internet-Draft
draft-fielding-url-syntax-05.txt
--
Al Gilman
