RFC 1808 (rfc1808) - Page 1 of 16
Relative Uniform Resource Locators
Alternative Format: Original Text Document
Network Working Group R. Fielding
Request for Comments: 1808 UC Irvine
Category: Standards Track June 1995
Relative Uniform Resource Locators
Status of this Memo
This document specifies an Internet standards track protocol for the
Internet community, and requests discussion and suggestions for
improvements. Please refer to the current edition of the "Internet
Official Protocol Standards" (STD 1) for the standardization state
and status of this protocol. Distribution of this memo is unlimited.
Abstract
A Uniform Resource Locator (URL) is a compact representation of the
location and access method for a resource available via the Internet.
When embedded within a base document, a URL in its absolute form may
contain a great deal of information which is already known from the
context of that base document's retrieval, including the scheme,
network location, and parts of the url-path. In situations where the
base URL is well-defined and known to the parser (human or machine),
it is useful to be able to embed URL references which inherit that
context rather than re-specifying it in every instance. This
document defines the syntax and semantics for such Relative Uniform
Resource Locators.
1. Introduction
This document describes the syntax and semantics for "relative"
Uniform Resource Locators (relative URLs): a compact representation
of the location of a resource relative to an absolute base URL. It
is a companion to RFC 1738, "Uniform Resource Locators (URL)" [2],
which specifies the syntax and semantics of absolute URLs.
A common use for Uniform Resource Locators is to embed them within a
document (referred to as the "base" document) for the purpose of
identifying other Internet-accessible resources. For example, in
hypertext documents, URLs can be used as the identifiers for
hypertext link destinations.
Absolute URLs contain a great deal of information which may already
be known from the context of the base document's retrieval, including
the scheme, network location, and parts of the URL path. In
situations where the base URL is well-defined and known, it is useful
to be able to embed a URL reference which inherits that context
Fielding Standards Track