urlterminologyrelative-url

Absolute urls, relative urls, and...?

I am writing some documentation and I have a little vocabulary problem:

  1. http://www.example.com/en/public/img/logo.gif is called an "absolute" url, right?
  2. ../../public/img/logo.gif is called a "relative" url, right?
  3. so how do you call this: /en/public/img/logo.gif ?

Is it also considered an "absolute url", although without the protocol and domain parts?

Or is it considered a relative url, but relative to the root of the domain?

I googled a bit and some people categorize this as absolute, and others as relative.

What should I call it? A "semi-absolute url"? Or "semi-relative"? Is there another word?

Solution

  • Here are the URL components:

    http://www.example.com/en/public/img/logo.gif
\__/   \_____________/\_____________________/
 #1     #2             #3
    1. scheme/protocol
    2. host
    3. path

    A URL is called an absolute URL if it begins with the scheme and scheme specific part (here // after http:). Anything else is a relative URL.

    A URL path is called an absolute URL path if it begins with a /. Any other URL path is called a relative URL path.

    Thus:

    Note: The current definition of URI (RFC 3986) is different from the old URL definition (RFC 1738 and RFC 1808).

    The three examples with URI terms: