Lex Spoon wrote:
> Bert Freudenberg <bert at isg.cs.uni-magdeburg.de> wrote:
> 
> 
>>>It's a useful extension.  Such a URL is not covered in the RFC's, but it
>>>is useful and people do it.
>>
>>I don't think it's useful. I'd consider it even bad and confusing (like 
>>this discussion clearly shows) because the power of URLs stems from the 
>>simple fact that it is *only* a well-defined string. Also, the code 
>>becomes rather ugly, with "isAbsolute ifTrue: [...]" scattered around 
>>the place.

A few things from the RFC are below.
The problem that I have with the current implementation is not that it 
is incomplete, but it does too many things. URIs are basically strings 
without any semantic meaning in respect to the scheme. The scheme only 
becomes "meaningful" through its interpretation as a protocol. So the 
right thing to do IM(H)O is to have "pure" URIs like in my package and 
dispatch any operations to the protocol counter part, be it the file 
system or an ftp or http client.

The problems that are evident in all these hacks throughout the URL 
classes stem from trying to interpret non-conforming URI constructs in a 
"smart" way.  If you actually stick to the spec, especially the part

   Indeed, the
    base URI is necessary to define the semantics of any relative URI
    reference; without it, a relative reference is meaningless.

none of the discussed problems are an issue.
E.g., 'g' asUrl -> http://g/  is one of these smart things that are just 
plain incorrect.



Michael

-------------

       URI-reference = [ absoluteURI | relativeURI ] [ "#" fragment ]

    The syntax for relative URI is a shortened form of that for absolute
    URI, where some prefix of the URI is missing and certain path
    components ("." and "..") have a special meaning when, and only when,
    interpreting a relative path.  The relative URI syntax is defined in
    Section 5.


    A relative reference that does not begin with a scheme name or a
    slash character is termed a relative-path reference.

5.1. Establishing a Base URI

    The term "relative URI" implies that there exists some absolute "base
    URI" against which the relative reference is applied.  Indeed, the
    base URI is necessary to define the semantics of any relative URI
    reference; without it, a relative reference is meaningless.  In order
    for relative URI to be usable within a document, the base URI of that
    document must be known to the parser.

C. Examples of Resolving Relative URI References

    Within an object with a well-defined base URI of

       http://a/b/c/d;p?q

    the relative URI would be resolved as follows:

C.1.  Normal Examples

       g:h           =  g:h
       g             =  http://a/b/c/g
       ./g           =  http://a/b/c/g
       g/            =  http://a/b/c/g/
       /g            =  http://a/g
       //g           =  http://g
       ?y            =  http://a/b/c/?y
       g?y           =  http://a/b/c/g?y
       #s            =  (current document)#s
       g#s           =  http://a/b/c/g#s
       g?y#s         =  http://a/b/c/g?y#s
       ;x            =  http://a/b/c/;x
       g;x           =  http://a/b/c/g;x
       g;x?y#s       =  http://a/b/c/g;x?y#s
       .             =  http://a/b/c/
       ./            =  http://a/b/c/
       ..            =  http://a/b/
       ../           =  http://a/b/
       ../g          =  http://a/b/g
       ../..         =  http://a/
       ../../        =  http://a/
       ../../g       =  http://a/g