# Re: <URL:...> considered harmful

Steven D. Majewski (sdm7g@virginia.edu)
Tue, 13 Sep 1994 14:41:48 -0400 (EDT)

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    Date: Tue, 13 Sep 1994 14:41:48 -0400 (EDT)

    From: "Steven D. Majewski" <sdm7g@virginia.edu>

    To: Owen Rees <rtor@ansa.co.uk>

    Subject: Re: <URL:...> considered harmful

    In-Reply-To: <9409131143.AA15208@plato.ansa.co.uk>

    Message-Id: <Pine.A32.3.90.940913142443.16880D-100000@elvis.med.Virginia.EDU>

On Tue, 13 Sep 1994, Owen Rees wrote:

> I feel it is important to have a recommended delimiter. Of the possible
> options, the <URL:...> form seems to me to be the least inconsistent with
> existing practice - it cannot be a valid "msg-id" or "route-addr" as defined
> in RFC-822 (":" is a "special" so MUST NOT occur unquoted). Using "<...>" to
> "indicate the presence of a one machine-usable reference" is quite plausible.
> Parentheses indicate comments and square brackets indicate domain literals in
> RFC-822 so using either of these seems doubtful.
>

URL: <scheme://...>

Also has a ":" ending the scheme part, so it can't be a msg-id or
route-addr.

<scheme://...> and "scheme://..." are already widely used.
( as is whitespace delimited URL's, but you have raised valid
objections against them. )

Lynx and Mosaic don't currently accept URL:scheme://...
It seems less problematic to make the wrappers "<" & ">"
with the URL: recommended and optional. That would seem
to fit current practice and code even better.

Better yet, change it to "URI: <scheme://...> "
which would match a valid HTTP header which has the same meaning,
and change the HTTP syntax to accept that syntax ( with the
"<" ">" wrappers. ) and encourage clients to accept wrapped or
unwrapped locators. This would make the recommendation stronger,
and might mean that it is actually used.

>
> In summary my position is: a recommended (rather than required) delimiter is
> needed, the current proposal works, nothing with fewer problems is on offer;
> keep the text as it is.
>

- Steve Majewski (804-982-0831) <sdm7g@Virginia.EDU>
- UVA Department of Molecular Physiology and Biological Physics

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