# Re: The use of "?" in URLs

John A. Kunze (jak@violet.berkeley.edu)
Wed, 9 Mar 1994 08:56:54 -0800

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    Date: Wed, 9 Mar 1994 08:56:54 -0800

    From: jak@violet.berkeley.edu (John A. Kunze)

    Message-Id: <199403091656.IAA24598@violet.berkeley.edu>

    To: uri@bunyip.com

    Subject: Re: The use of "?" in URLs

> Date: Wed, 9 Mar 94 11:22:34 +0100
> From: Tim Berners-Lee <timbl@ptpc00.cern.ch>
>
> The "?" separator is defined as a search string separator
> at the highest level. That means that it can't be used for
> other things!
>
> If you look at the generic expansion,
>
> generic :: scheme : path [ ? search ]
>
> you see that the use of "?" is outside differences between
> schemes in priciple.

Unfortunately, the URI group was quite clear that resource locators
consist of: (a) a service and (b) an opaque parameter package.
No parameter package semantics common across services may be assumed.

And no, I don't have a solution to the gopher question. :-(

> In fact, the syntax mentions a search
> option for each relevant scheme separately simply in order
> to save confusion when people try to search news articles, etc.

Under separate schemes (services) is the appropriate place to mention
them, not in the generic expansion. As I recall, the official opacity
requirement was to protect creative development of new services.

-John

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