RFC - 3986

Uniform Resource Identifier (URI): Generic Syntax

Original:	ftp://ftp.isi.edu/in-notes/rfc3986.txt
Authors:	T. Berners-Lee [W3C/MIT], R. Fielding [Day Software], L. Masinter [Adobe Systems]
Date:	January 2005
Category:	Standard: STD-66 ]

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Obsoletes:
RFC-2732	Format for Literal IPv6 Addresses in URL's (Obsoleted by RFC-3986std66)
RFC-2396	Uniform Resource Identifiers (URI): Generic Syntax (Obsoleted by RFC-3986std66) (Updated by RFC-2732)
RFC-1808	Relative Uniform Resource Locators (Obsoleted by RFC-3986std66) (Updated by RFC-2396, RFC-2368prop)

Updates:
RFC-1738	Uniform Resource Locators (URL) (Obsoleted by RFC-4266prop, RFC-4248prop) (Updated by RFC-1808, RFC-2396, RFC-2368prop, RFC-3986std66)

Referred by:	57 RFC
Refers to:	24 RFC

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Status

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.

Copyright Notice

Copyright (C) The Internet Society (2005).

Abstract

A Uniform Resource Identifier (URI) is a compact sequence of characters that identifies an abstract or physical resource. This specification defines the generic URI syntax and a process for resolving URI references that might be in relative form, along with guidelines and security considerations for the use of URIs on the Internet. The URI syntax defines a grammar that is a superset of all valid URIs, allowing an implementation to parse the common components of a URI reference without knowing the scheme-specific requirements of every possible identifier. This specification does not define a generative grammar for URIs; that task is performed by the individual specifications of each URI scheme.

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