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  <title>Web Naming and Addressing Overview (URIs, URLs,
  ...)</title>
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  <p><a href="../"><img border="0" alt="W3C" src="../Icons/WWW/w3c_home"/></a> <a href="../Architecture/"><img src="../Icons/arch" width="212" height="48" alt="Architecture Domain" border="0"/></a></p>

  <h1>Naming and Addressing: URIs, URLs, ...</h1>

  <p align="center">Links &#183; <a href="#background">About
  URIs</a> &#183; <a href="#time">History</a></p>

  <div class="Intro">
    This is an overview of W3C materials related to Addressing. The
    <a href="Activity">URI Activity Statement</a> explains W3C's
    work on this topic in more detail.

    <dl>
      <dt><strong>Standards Track Specifications</strong></dt>

      <dd><a href="#rfc3986">Uniform Resource Identifier (URI): Generic Syntax</a>, <a href="#rfc3987">Internationalized Resource Identifiers (IRIs)</a>,
      <a href="#1999">BCP for scheme registration process</a>,
      <a href="#19991">guidelines for new schemes</a>, <a href="http://www.iana.org/assignments/uri-schemes.html">IANA's list of
      URI schemes</a></dd>

      <dt><strong>Current W3C work on URIs</strong></dt>

      <dd>
        <a href="Activity">URI Activity Statement</a>, <a href="/2001/12/URI/">URI Interest Group</a>

        <ul>
          <li>
            <a href="/TR/uri-clarification/">URIs, URLs, and URNs:
            Clarifications and Recommendations 1.0</a> W3C Note Sep
            2001

            <p>(also <a href="http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc3305.txt">RFC 3305</a>
            (informational))</p>
          </li>
        </ul>
      </dd>

      <dt><strong>Related W3C work</strong></dt>

      <dd><a href="/2001/tag/">Technical Architecture Group
      (TAG)</a>, <a href="../International/">Internationalization</a>, <a href="/2001/sw/">Semantic Web</a>, <a href="/RDF/">RDF</a>,
      <a href="/XML/" name="XML1" id="XML1">Extensible Markup
      Language (XML)</a></dd>

      <dt><strong>Related <a href="http://www.ietf.org/">IETF</a>
      work, supported by W3C</strong></dt>

      <dd>
        <a href="../Protocols/">HTTP</a>

        <p>Work on <a href="http://www.gbiv.com/protocols/uri/rev-2002/issues.html">RFC
        2396 update</a> (to IETF Standard)</p>
      </dd>

      <dt><strong>Personal Perspectives</strong></dt>

      <dd>
        <ul>
          <li><a href="../Provider/Style/URI"><cite>Hypertext
          Style: Cool URIs don't change</cite></a> by Tim
          Berners-Lee in <a href="../Provider/Style/"><cite>Style
          Guide for online hypertext</cite></a></li>

          <li>
            <dl>
              <dt><cite><a href="http://archive.ncsa.uiuc.edu/demoweb/url-primer.html">
              A Beginner's Guide to URLs</a></cite> The classic
              intro to URLs, by <a href="mailto:mosaic@ncsa.uiuc.edu">The NCSA Mosaic
              team</a></dt>
            </dl>
          </li>

          <li>
            <dl>
              <dt><a href="9710-uri-vs-url.html">on URI vs. URL</a>
              Oct 1997</dt>
            </dl>
          </li>

          <li>
            <dl>
              <dt><a href="http://www.ics.uci.edu/pub/ietf/uri/">IETF - Uniform
              Resource Identifiers (URI) Working Group</a>
              maintained by Roy Fielding</dt>
            </dl>
          </li>

          <li>Tim Berners-Lee's original writings on <a href="../DesignIssues/Naming">Document Naming</a>, part of
          <a href="../DesignIssues/">Design Issues</a> for
          the Web</li>

          <li>some <a href="notes.html">older notes</a> by Dan
          Connolly</li>

          <li><a href="http://www.w3.org/DesignIssues/ModelConsequences">URI
          Model Consequences</a>, by Jim Gettys</li>
        </ul>
      </dd>

      <dt><strong><a name="discussion" id="discussion">Community
      Discussion</a></strong></dt>

      <dd><a href="http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/uri/">uri@w3.org</a>,
      <a href="http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-talk/">www-talk@w3.org</a>,
      <a href="http://esw.w3.org/topic/UriSchemes">UriSchemes</a>
      topic in the ESW Wiki</dd>
    </dl>
  </div>

  <h2><a name="background" id="background">Learning About
  URIs</a></h2>

  <p>The Web is an information space. Human beings have a lot of
  mental machinery for manipulating, imagining, and finding their
  way in spaces. URIs are the points in that space.</p>

  <p>Unlike web data formats, where HTML is an important one, but
  not the only one, and web protocols, where HTTP has a similar
  status, there is only one Web naming/addressing technology:
  URIs.</p>

  <p>Uniform Resource Identifiers (URIs, aka URLs) are short
  strings that identify resources in the web: documents, images,
  downloadable files, services, electronic mailboxes, and other
  resources. They make resources available under a variety of
  naming schemes and access methods such as HTTP, FTP, and Internet
  mail addressable in the same simple way. They reduce the tedium
  of "log in to this server, then issue this magic command ..."
  down to a single click.</p>

  <p>It is an extensible technology: there are a number of existing
  addressing schemes, and more may be incorporated over time.</p>

  <h2><a name="time" id="time">Timeline: News, Events,
  Publications, and History</a></h2>

  <p>This is a <a name="specs" id="specs">publication history, or
  bibliography</a> collected from <a href="http://www.ietf.org/">IETF</a> documents and <a href="../TR/">W3C Technical Reports</a> as well as a record of
  events.</p>

  <dl>
    <dt id="rfc3986">Jan 2005</dt>
    <dd><cite><a href="http://www.gbiv.com/protocols/uri/rfc/rfc3986.html">Uniform Resource Identifier (URI): Generic Syntax</a></cite>  [RFC3986]</dd>
    <dt id="rfc3987">Jan 2005</dt>
    <dd><cite><a href="http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc3987.txt">Internationalized Resource Identifiers (IRIs)</a></cite></dd>

    <dt>March 2003</dt>

    <dd>Uniform Resource Identifiers (uribof) Bof at <a href="http://www.ietf.org/PASTMEETINGS/IETF-56B.html">IETF 56</a> in
    San Francisco</dd>

    <dt>March 2001</dt>

    <dd><a href="http://www2.ietf.org/proceedings/01mar/minutes/furi-m.txt">Future
    of URI (FURI) BOF</a> at <a href="http://www.ietf.org/">IETF</a> 50, Minneapolis</dd>

    <dt><a name="19991">Nov 1999</a></dt>

    <dd><cite><a href="http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc2718.txt">Guidelines for new URL
    Schemes</a></cite>, November 1999 RFC2718</dd>

    <dt><a name="1999">Nov 1999</a></dt>

    <dd><a href="http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc2717.txt"><cite>Registration
    Procedures for URL Scheme Names</cite></a> R. Petke, (RFC
    2717)</dd>

    <dt>Dec 1998</dt>

    <dd><a href="../Provider/Style/URI"><cite>Hypertext Style: Cool
    URIs don't change</cite></a> section added to <a href="../Provider/Style/"><cite>Style Guide for online
    hypertext</cite></a></dd>

    <dt><a name="9808uri">August 1998</a></dt>

    <dd><cite><a href="http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc2396.txt">Uniform
    Resource Identifiers (URI): Generic Syntax<br/></a></cite>
    (RFC 2396) T. Berners-Lee, R. Fielding, L. Masinter</dd>

    <dt><a name="1997">May 1997</a></dt>

    <dd>
      <a href="http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc2141.txt"><cite>URN
      Syntax</cite></a>

      <p>RFC 2141 R. Moats</p>
    </dd>

    <dt>Apr 1997</dt>

    <dd>38th <a href="http://www.ietf.org/">IETF</a>: URN WG
    meeting (<a href="9704ietf38-notes">research notes</a>)</dd>

    <dt>Dec 1996</dt>

    <dd><a href="http://www.ietf.org/proceedings/96dec/toc-96dec.html">San Jose
    IETF</a> -- <a href="ftp://ftp.parc.xerox.com/pub/masinter/url-bof-agenda.html">URL
    BOF</a></dd>

    <dt>Nov 1996</dt>

    <dd><a href="http://www.dlib.org/dlib/november96/11miller.html" name="w3c-diglib" id="w3c-diglib">W3C and Digital
    Libraries</a>, James S. Miller, <a href="http://www.dlib.org/">D-Lib Magazine</a></dd>

    <dt>Spring 1996</dt>

    <dd>2nd issue of <a href="../Journal/">W3J</a>, <a href="../Journal/2/" name="96w3j">Key Specifications of the World
    Wide Web</a> includes URI specs.</dd>

    <dt>July 1995</dt>

    <dd><!-- mid:199508032128.RAA26992@info.cren.net -->
    <a href="http://www.ics.uci.edu/pub/ietf/uri/meetings/minutes-stockholm.txt">
    IETF URI Working Group is closed.</a></dd>

    <dt>June 1995</dt>

    <dd>
      <a href="rfc1808.txt" name="RFC1808" id="RFC1808">RFC
      1808</a> released as <strong>Proposed Standard</strong>

      <p><cite>Relative Uniform Resource Locators</cite> R.
      Fielding</p>

      <p>Abstract:</p>

      <blockquote>
        ... 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.
      </blockquote>

      <p>This one is both authoritative (i.e. it's been through the
      IETF proposed standard process) and accurate on the matter of
      the syntax of URLs. Its grammar is complete and consistent,
      and there are several clarifying examples.</p>

      <p>On the other hand, it does not discuss any of the actual
      URL schemes (such as HTTP, FTP, ...)</p>
    </dd>

    <dt><a name="URL94" id="URL94">December 1994</a></dt>

    <dd>
      <a href="rfc1738.txt" name="RFC1738" id="RFC1738">(RFC
      1738)</a> released as <strong>Proposed Standard</strong>:

      <p><cite><a href="URL/Overview.html" name="url-spec" id="url-spec">Uniform Resource Locators (URL)</a></cite> T.
      Berners-Lee, L. Masinter, M. McCahill</p>

      <p>Abstract:</p>

      <blockquote>
        This document specifies a Uniform Resource Locator (URL),
        the syntax and semantics of formalized information for
        location and access of resources via the Internet.
      </blockquote>

      <p>This one is ratified as an IETF proposed standard, and it
      discusses each of the URL schemes (known at that time), but
      its grammar has some mistakes, and it doesn't cover several
      aspects of URL syntax, such as relative URLs and fragment
      identifiers</p>
    </dd>

    <dt>December 1994</dt>

    <dd>
      <a href="rfc1737.txt">RFC 1737</a>,
      <strong>Informational</strong>

      <p><cite>Functional Requirements for Uniform Resource
      Names</cite> , K. Sollins, L. Masinter</p>

      <p>Abstract:</p>

      <blockquote>
        This document specifies a minimum set of requirements for a
        kind of Internet resource identifier known as Uniform
        Resource Names (URNs). ...
      </blockquote>
    </dd>

    <dt><a name="URI94" id="URI94">June 1994</a></dt>

    <dd>
      <a href="rfc1630.txt">RFC 1630</a>,
      <strong>Informational</strong>, is released:

      <p><cite><a href="URL/URI_Overview.html" name="uri-spec" id="uri-spec">Universal Resource Identifiers in WWW: A Unifying
      Syntax for the Expression of Names and Addresses of Objects
      on the Network as used in the World-Wide Web</a></cite> T.
      Berners-Lee.</p>
    </dd>

    <dd>This documents the designer's intent, before it was revised
    by the standards process. It was written by Tim Berners-Lee,
    but has only informational status in the IETF. It discusses all
    aspects of URLs (relative, etc.) though it has some mistakes in
    the grammar etc.</dd>

    <dt>March 94</dt>

    <dd><a href="http://www.ietf.org/proceedings/94mar/charters/uri-charter.html">
    IETF URI working group is formed</a></dd>

    <dt>1991</dt>

    <dd>Tim Berners-Lee's original writings on <a href="../DesignIssues/Naming">Document Naming</a>, part of <a href="../DesignIssues/">Design Issues</a> for the Web</dd>
  </dl>

  <p>See also:</p>

  <ul>
    <li><a href="../WWW/">Background and History of the
    Web</a></li>

    <li><a href="../News/">W3C News and Announcements</a></li>
  </ul>
  <hr/>

  <address>
    <a href="../People/Connolly/">Dan Connolly</a>
    <br/><small>$Revision: 1.58 $ of $Date: 2006/02/27 15:15:52 $
    <br/>Created 1993 by <a href="../People/Berners-Lee/">TimBL</a></small>
  </address>

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