Re: Proposition on advanced URL features (Request for comments)

Daniel W. Connolly (connolly@beach.w3.org)
Mon, 27 Nov 1995 23:00:34 -0500


In message <199511272028.VAA11965@rasips1.rasip.etf.hr>, Mirsad Todorovac write
s:
>
>
>Existing syntax of the URL allows constructs like this:
>
> http://<host>:<port>/<path>#anchor?<searchpath>

er... not quite. The #anchor comes after the ?searchpath.

>We propose to extend posibility of the # addressing in http URL scheme in
>following ways:

These are interesting ideas, and they come up from time to time
on this list, but they don't seem to merit deployment for one
reason or another. I'd like to see folks hack up support for them
and tell us how it goes. Heck -- maybe Henrik will hack them into
the library!

> 1. URL doc.html##123 should mean:
> "Start display of rendered document at line 123 of resulting
> document text (not the source).

Err.. what's the definition of a line in HTML?

In plain text, it's much more clear.

In any case I'd suggest something a little more mnemonic, like maybe:

foo.txt#line=123

Of course that takes the = character away from the anchor name syntax,
but I for one won't miss it.

> 2. URL: doc.html##H2.3
> "Set top of display to third heading of level 2 in document
> doc.html."

I suggest:

doc.html#count=3;element=H2

or something like that. Anybody know the TEI pointer syntax off the top
of their head?

> 3. URL: doc.html##/foobar/[n]
>
> "Set top of display to the first [n-th] occurance of word
> (desirable regexp) 'foobar' inside rendered doc.html".

doc.html#search=foobar
doc.txt#search=foobar
doc#count=3;search=foobar

>An Example
>----------
>
>Please note use of #/ extension in this case:

I think you will lose badly if you attempt to use / in fragment
identifiers.

Dan