Re: Absolute URL parsing bug

[Andrew Haley <aph at redhat dot com>]

Per Bothner writes:
 > Andrew Haley wrote:
 > > This URL is an absolute URL because its path begins with a "/":
 > > 
 > > "jar:file:/usr/src/redhat/BUILD/jonas-4.3.3/jonas/output/JONAS_4_3_3/examples/webservices/beans/ws/temp/ejbjars/ws.jar!/META-INF/wsdl/ssbEndpoint.wsdl"
 > > 
 > > [ An absolute file URL can look like:
 > > 
 > >    absoluteURI = "file" ":" abs_path
 > >    abs_path = "/" path_segments
 > > 
 > > That is, there is no need for "//".
 > 
 > I don't see that in any of the specs.

I got it from RFC 2396.  Which I might have read wrongly, of course.

 > Technically, "file:/tmp/foo.html" is not a valid URI, as far as I
 > can tell.  I notice that firefox rewrites it (in the navigation
 > bar) to "file:///tmp/foo.html".
 >
 > Now in practice we may want to allow "file:/tmp/foo.html", but it should 
 > be viewed as an unofficial short-hand for "file:///tmp/foo.html".
 > 
 > > And indeed, the URL spec in the
 > > SDK docs says 'If the spec's path component begins with a slash
 > > character "/" then the path is treated as absolute...' ]
 > 
 > The *path* is absolute, but the URI isn't.
 > 
 > This matters when resolving a relative URL against a base URI, such as 
 > he URL of the containing document.
 > 
 > If we have a base URI "http://bar.com/baz/index.html"; and a reference 
 > "/tmp/foo.html" then the resolved URI is "http://bar.com/tmp/foo.html";.
 > 
 > > But we parse the spec looking for "//" to determine if a URL is
 > > absolute,
 > 
 > A URL is absolute *only* if it has a "scheme".

I don't really understand what you're suggesting.  Would it be OK to
special-case "file" URIs so that "file:/" is rewritten to ""file:///" ?

I have no opinions about the syntax of URIs, I only want to make
real-world applications work.  In this case we have to guess what Java
libraries are doing.

Andrew.