# URI definition in HTML standard

Larry Masinter (masinter@parc.xerox.com)
Fri, 9 Jun 1995 00:26:19 PDT

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    To: uri@bunyip.com

    Subject: URI definition in HTML standard

    From: Larry Masinter <masinter@parc.xerox.com>

    Message-Id: <95Jun9.002632pdt.2761@golden.parc.xerox.com>

    Date: Fri, 9 Jun 1995 00:26:19 PDT

The HTML standard is proposing to define 'URI', since we haven't.
Here's what they're saying. Check it out.

Subject: Re: HTML 2.0 LAST CALL: URI vs URL
Date: Thu, 8 Jun 1995 07:27:19 -0700
From: "Daniel W. Connolly" <connolly@beach.w3.org>

In message <95Jun4.170924pdt.58374@omnibus.parc.xerox.com>, Larry Masinter writ
es:
>> The URI working group is going to keep redefining things.
>
>Not if I can help it. I suggest that the HTML 2.0 standards-track
>document not attempt to make forward reference to URNs when there is
>no standards-track or even widespread current practice for such.

The only reference to URNs is:

http://www.w3.org/hypertext/WWW/MarkUp/html-spec/html-spec_4.html#SEC59
Thu Jun 8 15:08:56 1995
|URN
| specifies a preferred, more persistent identifier for the head anchor of
| the hyperlink. The format of URNs is under discussion (1995) by
| various working groups of the Internet Engineering Task Force.

I'm willing to take that last sentence out.

>Since standards-track HTML 2.0 is to be rooted in `current practice',
>it should make reference to the standards-track RFC 1738, and say that
>in HTML, a reference can be either a URL or a relative URL followed
>optionally by an anchor;

The current draft says:

http://www.w3.org/hypertext/WWW/MarkUp/html-spec/html-spec_6.html#SEC65
Thu Jun 8 15:08:57 1995
|Anchors are addressed by Uniform Resource Identifiers (URI). URIs either
|refer directly to an anchor in absolute form for example as in [URL], or
|they refer to an anchor relative to a base URI which is absolute, as in
|[RELURL].

> the interpretation of the anchor is only
>defined if the URL (or partial URL) refers to a HTML 2.0 document, and
>in such case, the anchor is as defined in HTML 2.0 standards. It would
>be useful to make note that a particular kind of reference is one that
>supplies a null partial URL followed by a '#' fragment identifier, in
>which case it means a link to an anchor in the very same HTML
>document.

The current draft says (eek! why are fragment identifiers under
images? lemme fix that...):

http://www.w3.org/hypertext/WWW/MarkUp/html-spec/html-spec_6.html#SEC69
Thu Jun 8 15:25:20 1995
|Any characters following a `#' character in a URI constitute a fragment
|identifier. As a degenerate case, a URI of the form `#fragment' refers to
|an anchor in the same document.
|
|The meaning of fragment identifiers depends on the media type of the
|resource containing the head anchor. For `text/html' resources, it refers
|to the A element with a NAME attribute whose value is the same as the
|fragment identifier. The matching is case sensitive. The document should
|have exactly one such element. The user agent should indicate the anchor
|element, for example by scrolling to and/or highlighting the phrase.

How's that?

Dan

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