Date: Sun, 10 Oct 1993 19:39:20 -0700 (PDT)
From: Mitra <mitra@path.net>
Subject: (LONG) Detailed notes on URL6.TXT
To: uri@bunyip.com
Message-Id: <Pine.3.07.9310101920.A2007-d100000@fire.path.net>
These are notes on the 14 July 1993 draft of the URL spec,
otherwise known as:
ftp://ds.internic.net/internet-drafts/draft-ietf-uri-01.txt
unfortunately the .ps version contains something that crashes Ghostscript,
so I cant check references to that.
The overwhelming consensus at the last IETF was that this document needs
to move to draft standard ASAP and that it was better to have things in the
document that any one of us might disagree with, than to not have an
agreed standard.
To that end - I've numbered the points, lets start a thread for each
point where there is discussion, so we can keep a focussed discussion,
and identify those areas where the change should be made, those areas where
I'm off the wall, and those areas where we need to discuss it more here
or at the IETF.
Tim - do you want to take these items and combine them with any input
to create a changes proposal for Houston, or do you want me to do this?
Because a concern of some people is compatibility with older applications
(especially WWW) I've added comments where I can see some implication for
WWW - since that's not the app I'm most familiar with I've probably made
some mistakes there.
- Mitra
==========================================================
1) Uniqueness Page 5:
Garbled text should read "It is suggested that each object have a unique
"official" name"
2) Choices - pg 7:
Delete para "The use of white space ... between applications"
white space was reinstated in Amsterdam,
WWW (or other aps) can still choose to escape white space, but should be
recognized where input by a user. Whether white space needs escaping
inside a URL inside a HTML document is a choice for the HTML standards
people.
3) Fragment Id - pg 7
Delete entire section
I thought Fragment id's had been removed from URL's, and that # was
restored as a valid character inside a URL. Other apps than WWW use #
for other purposes e.g. its a valid character in a filename.
WWW - I think this causes WWW problems.
4) Path - pg 9
Replace "must" with "should"
This is a function of the application, in most apps "/" has hierarchical
meaning, in others its part of the valid character set with no syntatical
meaning.
5) Partial form pg 10.
Replace "/xxx/.." with "xxx/../" and "/." with "./"
I think I'm right about this xxx/.. always appears with a trailing slash, but
need not have a leading slash, as in '../README'
6) Encoding prohibited characters pg 11
Delete last paragraph "The same considerations...URL"
See notes above on fragments.
7) FTP pg 12
Last para - append to sentence ending "deduced from the data format" the
phrase "or from information carried with the URL in a URC"
8) FTP pg 12
Last sentence replace "it" with "this is"
Purely grammatical.
9) News - pg 12
This whole section needs rewriting. It describes a URN - i.e. the
messageid. This is location and time independant. We do need something
here, its a URL that can be used with NNTP, which I believe requires
article numbers i.e. a news url should look something like.
nntp:path.net/comp/infosystems/gopher/3456
10) Wais - pg 12
A client does not need to know the length to retrieve an object, the bytes
to be retrieved may (but are not neccessarily) encoded in docid. The type is
carried seperately, and is required for retrieval since a docid can refer
to a number of seperate objects with different types.
11) Wais - pg 13
Change "not of course not need" to "not of course need"
!!need != !need :-)
12) Prospero - pg 13
Change "feilds" to "fields"
13) Prospero - pg 14
I dont think the stuff about %00 and attributes goes here, it belongs in
the URC
14) Prospero - pg 14
The comment about External Prospero links applies equally well to Gopher,
and should be deleted here, or added to the Gopher entry.
15) Gopher - pg 14
This entry only works for Gopher0 not Gopher+. A gopher URL must
distinguish between G+ and G0 because clients will break if they ask for
G+ and get G0.
16) Gopher - pg 14
In Gopher+ a type is required for retrieval.
The type character is not required for retrieval in G0. It may be present
in the path but need not be. It belongs in the URC.
Note WWW incorrectly included the type in their URL which probably gives
the historical reason for this definition.
17) BNF - pg 15
The following changes follow from the points above, lets leave the details
until we agree on which of the changes above belong in the spec.
delete entries for "fragmentaddress" and "fragmentid" (see 3)
change "fileaddress" to "ftpaddress"
delete "newsaddress" see 9
waisdoc doesnt need "digits/" (see 10)
prosperolink probably needs changing (see 13)
telnetaddress (or rather "user") needs password, we deprecate it
(see "Internet protocol parts" on pg 9), but it is allowed.
gopheraddress shouldnt have "/gtype" (see 16)
gtype can be deleted (see 16)
extra should, I believe, include "#" (see 3)
variant and punctation should be deleted, they arent referred to anywhere,
and variant in particular is a term used in URI parlance for something else.
A note should be added that the definition of path allows it to end in
a / - I think this is intentional, but its non obvious.
18) References.
Alberti... Change 00 to 0 (see 16)
All occurances of %20 should be changed to a space (see 2)
Berner-Lee...
Delete the "." after ch, a hostname cant end in . according to the BNF