RFC 1738

Network Working Group
Request for Comments: 1738
Category: Standards Track

T. Berners-Lee
CERN
L. Masinter
Xerox Corporation
M. McCahill
University of Minnesota
Editors
December 1994

Status of this Memo

This document specifies an Internet standards track protocol for the Internet community, and requests discussion and suggestions for improvements. Please refer to the current edition of the "Internet Official Protocol Standards" (STD 1) for the standardization state and status of this protocol. Distribution of this memo is unlimited.

Abstract

This document specifies a Uniform Resource Locator (URL), the syntax and semantics of formalized information for location and access of resources via the Internet.

Table of Contents

• 1. Introduction
• 2. General URL Syntax
  • 2.1. The main parts of URLs
  • 2.2. URL Character Encoding Issues
  • 2.3 Hierarchical schemes and relative links
• 3. Specific Schemes
  • 3.1. Common Internet Scheme Syntax
  • 3.2. FTP
    • 3.2.1. FTP Name and Password
    • 3.2.2. FTP url-path
    • 3.2.3. FTP Typecode is Optional
    • 3.2.4 Hierarchy
    • 3.2.5. Optimization
  • 3.3. HTTP
  • 3.4. GOPHER
    • 3.4.1. Gopher URL syntax
    • 3.4.2 Specifying URLs for Gopher Search Engines
    • 3.4.3 URL syntax for Gopher+ items
    • 3.4.4 Default Gopher+ data representation
    • 3.4.5 Gopher+ items with electronic forms
    • 3.4.6 Gopher+ item attribute collections
    • 3.4.7 Referring to specific Gopher+ attributes
    • 3.4.8 URL syntax for Gopher+ alternate views
    • 3.4.9 URL syntax for Gopher+ electronic forms
  • 3.5. MAILTO
  • 3.6. NEWS
  • 3.7. NNTP
  • 3.8. TELNET
  • 3.9. WAIS
  • 3.10 FILES
  • 3.11 PROSPERO
• 4. REGISTRATION OF NEW SCHEMES
• 5. BNF for specific URL schemes
• 6. Security Considerations
• 7. Acknowledgements
• APPENDIX: Recommendations for URLs in Context
• References
• Editors' Addresses

• Original text document
• Complete HTML RFC (TAR, TGZ, or ZIP format)