4.1. Uniform Resource Locators
URLs, or Uniform Resource Locators, allow the naming of arbitrary objects within a global network. Most URLs are specified in Web objects and either are automatically downloaded by browsers or are only indirectly—as hyperlinks—visible to an end user. If URLs are advertised directly to users, they are usually incomplete and rely on a Web browser to expand them to their correct form. For example, AT&T's advertisements direct customers to "att.com," which a browser expands to "http://att.com"—the correct URL for the entry page into AT&T's Web site.
Figure 4.1 shows the general syntax of a URL as introduced in RFC 1738 and later updated in RFC 1808 and RFC 2368 [Berners-Lee et al. 1994; Fielding 1995; Hoffman et al. ...
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