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URLs vs. URIs

Home[1] Study[2] URLs vs. URIs

There are many classic tech debates, and the question of what to formally call web addresses
is one of the most nuanced. The way this normally manifests is someone asks for the URL
to put into his or her browser, and someone perks up with,
Actually, thats called a URI, not a URL
The response to this correction can range from quietly thinking this person needs to get out
more, to agreeing indifferently via shoulder shrug, to removing the safety clasp on a Katana.
This page hopes to serve as a simple, one page summary for navigating the subtleties of this
debate.

URI, URL, URN

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As the image above indicates, there are three distinct components at play here. Its usually
best to go to the source when discussing matters like these, so heres an exerpt from Tim
Berners-Lee, et. al. in RFC 3986: Uniform Resource Identi er (URI): Generic Syntax:[3]
A Uniform Resource Identi er (URI) is a compact sequence of characters that identi es
an abstract or physical resource.
A URI can be further classi ed as a locator, a name, or both. The term Uniform
Resource Locator (URL) refers to the subset of URIs that, in addition to identifying a
resource, provide a means of locating the resource by describing its primary access
mechanism (e.g., its network location).
Wikipedia captures this well[4] with the following simpli cation:
One can classify URIs as locators (URLs), or as names (URNs), or as both. A Uniform
Resource Name (URN) functions like a persons name, while a Uniform Resource Locator
(URL) resembles that persons street address. In other words: the URN de nes an items
identity, while the URL provides a method for nding it.
So we get a few things from these descriptions:
1. First of all (as we see in the diagram as well) a URL is a type of URI. So if someone tells
you that a URL is not a URI, hes wrong. But that doesnt mean all URIs are URLs. All
butter ies y, but not everything that ies is a butter y.
2. The part that makes a URI a URL is the inclusion of the access mechanism, or network
location, e.g. http:// or ftp://.
3. The URN is the globally unique part of the identi cation; its a unique name.
So lets look at some examples of URIsagain from the RFC:
ftp://ftp.is.co.za/rfc/rfc1808.txt (also a URL because of the protocol)
http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc2396.txt (also a URL because of the protocol)
ldap://[2001:db8::7]/c=GB?objectClass?one (also a URL because of the protocol)
mailto:[email protected] (also a URL because of the protocol)
news:comp.infosystems.www.servers.unix (also a URL because of the protocol)
tel:+1-816-555-1212
telnet://192.0.2.16:80/ (also a URL because of the protocol)
urn:oasis:names:specification:docbook:dtd:xml:4.1.2

Those are all URIs, and some of them are URLs. Which are URLs? The ones that show you

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how to get to them. Again, the name vs. address analogy serves well.

Summary
So this brings us to the question that brings many readers here:
Which is the more proper term when referring to web addresses?
Based on the dozen or so articles and RFCs I read while researching this article, Id say that
URI is probably the better term to use.
Well, because we often use URIs in forms that dont technically qualify as a URL. For
example, you might be told that a le you need is located at files.hp.com. Thats a URI, not a
URLand that system might very well respond to many protocols over many ports.
If you go to http://files.hp.com you could conceivably get completely different content than
if you go to ftp://files.hp.com. And this type of thing is only getting more common. Think
of all the different services that live on the various Google domains.
So, if you use URI youll always be technically correct, and if you use URL you might not be.
Finally, there is signi cant chatter around the term URL beingor becomingdeprecated.
So URI is a fairly safe choice in terms of accuracy.
That being said, Dafydd Stuttard[5] has a different view, which is that the terms are near
enough the same so as to make it pure pedantry to differentiate. In The Web Application
Hackers Handbook[6] he states:
The correct technical term for a URL is actually URI (or uniform resource identi er), but
this term is really only used in formal speci cations and by those who wish to exhibit
their pedantry.
Indeed.
[ NOTE: If someone actually gives a full URL then the more correct technical term is still
URL, but I think I know what he meant. ]

Final word

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If you dont mind being that guy, URI is probably the more accurate term to use. But if you
are in the linguist / use whats understood camp, feel free to go with URL.

Notes and references

1. RFC 2396.[7]
2. Wikipedia | URI[8].
3. An explanation of the differences[9] from damnhandy.com.
4. Another interesting point is the fact that Google Chrome is now purposely dropping the
protocol from the display within the browserwhich is in effect visually turning URLs into
URIs.
1. https://danielmiessler.com/
2. https://danielmiessler.com/study/
3. http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc3986
4. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uniform_Resource_Identi er
5. http://blog.portswigger.net/
6. http://www.amazon.com/Web-Application-Hackers-Handbook-Discovering/dp/0470170778
7. http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc2396.txt
8. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uniform_Resource_Identi er
9. http://www.damnhandy.com/2009/08/26/url-vs-uri-vs-urn-in-more-concise-terms/

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