Web URL Basics
a very VERY Brief look at what is in a
URL
Introduction:
Your ability to both write web-pages as well as
to view them (and have your 'customers') view them, efficiently - can
be based on how well you understand a URL:
so - let's take a basic look, we'll get more complex as we go.
A Basic URL is as
such: http://www.vikingasia.org
There are 'parts' to this - many people don't understand the 'parts'
since the whole thing is usually given as one 'string' with no
spaces... However, the web-browser-client-software
(Internet Explorer, or Safari or whatever) reads several things into
this 'basic' URL:
1.) the ' http:// ' part gets
the browser (and the computer's operating system) to look for an ' http ' style page (the network
typically identifies this as 'port 80' (web-pages) on the (web) server
to which this URL is sent.
2.) the ' www.vikingasia.org
' - is the 'host' name (that is the browser (well actually the
computer's operating system's network-sub-system) looks this up to find
an 'IP address' then the computer's networking sub-system talks to the
'host' (computer (typically the web-server))...
Here's a very easy way to understand the host-part - it's all the text between the
first pair of ' / ' that's it - that's all you need to
know to find the 'host' part of a URL...
also note: that there is frequently a 'spurious' www there - that in most
web-browser-client-software tools you do not need to type-in the ' www
' part. That part is 'typically assumed' by the
web-browser-client-software and if you have the ' http ' part - then the ' www ' part is redundant - you need at least one of them and
it's customary to have both, but you don't need them both.
Now - let's look at a more 'exotic' web-URL:
http://www.vikingasia.org/VAC/OS_Basics/OS_Basics.html
O.K., - we've already reviewed (above) the meaning of http://www.vikingasia.org, that we
understand, how about this other part, the /VAC/OS_Basics/OS_Basics.html part,
what is that...
That is pretty simple, merely a couple of directories (some call these
folders) - specifically /VAC/OS_Basics (that is one directory
(folder) called "VAC" and one folder (within VAC) called OS_Basics),
then there's a 'file-name' - OS_Basics.html (and you
can tell that file-name is an ....html file by it's ending...
MANY URLs would be like this: http://www.vikingasia.org/VAC/OS_Basics
or http://www.vikingasia.org/VAC/OS_Basics/
. Can you see the difference (the last character is or is
not a '/').
The bottom-line is that in this case (with no 'file-name' on the 'end'
that the system(s) (both the Web-Browser-client-software and the
computer's operating system (and it's networking sub-system) understand
and fill-in the 'default' name for the file it asks for and that
file-name is 'index.html'. This 'default' file-name
is something that Apache (with about 80% of the web-server-software
market) has settled on and now many other web-server-software tools
default to the same name...
We can - of course, take this sort of URL to the 'extreme' and here's how that might
look:
http://www.martin.fl.us/portal/page?_pageid=373,1813272&_dad=portal&_schema=PORTAL
o.k. - so we know about: "http://"
and we know about "www.martin.fl.us"
and we know about 'portal'
(it's a directory), what's all this 'other stuff' on the end:
page?_pageid=373,1813272&_dad=portal&_schema=PORTAL
That 'stuff' is
directions to the web-server (the computer on the 'other end' of your
network-link) to fill-in certain parameters, data, information and send
it back to your web-browser-client-software (Internet Explorer, Safari,
etc.) - and give you some information...
This 'information-string'can be WAY LONG - like 2-3-4 lines long - but
in most cases will not exceed 250 characters or so...
This particular information request is for information about airplanes
flying in and out of the Martin County airport, here in Stuart, Florida.
SOOOooo... now you think you understand Web URLs better
than you used to? Remember you read it here, first,
huh?
If you want more documentation or help with this issue - please write
to me at: bill@vikingasia.org.
last updated: 13:08 p.m. on
Tuesday, 23 January, 2007; revID: 1a