Uniform Resource Locator (URL) syntax
Last revision July 20, 2004
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The concept of the Uniform Resource Locator (URL) is to provide information on both the type of network service being accessed and the location, all in a single consistent syntax. Think of a URL as the network extension of a file pathname specification. In addition to specifying a file, it can tell where the file may be found on the network and what method may be used to access it. In fact, it can refer to more than just files. A URL may describe an email address, a network news group, or even an interactive program.
A URL has up to four parts, the resource or service type identifier, the service hostname (computer system name), the pathname of file to be fetched or program to run, and for html files, optional anchor name within file where display should start
The syntax for putting these parts together into a URL is:
resource_type://hostname.domain:port/filepathname#anchor
Note that each resource or service type interprets the hostname and filepathname section in its own way.