In
computing, a
Uniform Resource Locator (
URL) is a subset of the
Uniform Resource Identifier (URI) that specifies where an identified resource is available and the mechanism for retrieving it. In popular usage and in many technical documents and verbal discussions it is often incorrectly used as a
synonym for URI.
[1] In popular language, a URI is also referred to as a
Web address.
The Uniform Resource Locator was created in 1994[2] by Tim Berners-Lee as part of the URI.[3] The Uniform Resource Locator evolved out of the Universal Resource Locator [4]. Berners-Lee regrets the use of dots to separate the route to the server in the URI, and wishes he had used slashes for the whole thing[citation needed]. For example, http://www.serverroute.com/path/to/file.html would look like httpcom/serverroute/www/path/to/file.html.
Berners-Lee has also "apologised" for the two slashes that precede the server name [1].
Every URL is made up of some of the following the scheme name (commonly called protocol), followed by a colon, then, depending on scheme, a hostname (alternatively, IP address), a port number, the pathname of the file to be fetched or the program to be run, then (for programs such as CGI scripts) a query string[5][6], and with HTML files, an anchor (optional) for where the page should start to be displayed.[7]
