Absolute urls, relative urls, and...?

Question

I am writing some documentation and I have a little vocabulary problem:

1. http://www.somedomain.com/en/public/img/logo.gif is called an "absolute" url, right?
2. ../../public/img/logo.gif is called a "relative" url, right?
3. so how do you call this: /en/public/img/logo.gif ?

Is it also considered an "absolute url", although without the protocol and domain parts?

Or is it considered a relative url, but relative to the root of the domain?

I googled a bit and some people categorize this as absolute, and others as relative.

What should I call it? A "semi-absolute url"? Or "semi-relative"? Is there another word?

Answer 1

1. http://www.somedomain.com/en/public/img/logo.gif

-Fully qualified

1. ../../public/img/logo.gif

-Relative

1. /en/public/img/logo.gif

-Absolute

Answer 2

It is sometimes called a virtual url, for example in SSI:

<!--#include virtual = "/lib/functions.js" -->

Answer 3

Here are the URL components:

http://www.example.com/en/public/img/logo.gif
\__/   \_____________/\_____________________/
 #1     #2             #3

1. scheme/protocol
2. host
3. path

A URL is called an absolute URL if it begins with the scheme and scheme specific part (here // after http:). Anything else is a relative URL.

A URL path is called an absolute URL path if it begins with a /. Any other URL path is called a relative URL path.

Thus:

• http://www.example.com/en/public/img/logo.gif is a absolute URL,
• ../../public/img/logo.gif is a relative URL with a relative URL path and
• /en/public/img/logo.gif is a relative URL with an absolute URL path.

---

Note: The current definition of URI (RFC 3986) is different from the old URL definition (RFC 1738 and RFC 1808).

The three examples with URI terms:

• http://www.example.com/en/public/img/logo.gif is a URI,
• ../../public/img/logo.gif is a relative reference with just a relative path and
• /en/public/img/logo.gif is a relative reference with just an absolute path.

Answer 4

Keep in mind just how many segments of the URL can be omited, making them relative (note: its all of them, just about). These are all valid URLs:

• http://foo.com/bar?baz
• ?qoo
• /bar2
• dat/sly
• ://auth.foo.com (most people are surprised by this one! Will use http or https, depending on the current resource)
• #anchor

Answer 5

I have seen it called a root relative url. Try searching google using that term.