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Dave Pawson scripsit:
> >\\machine\share\dir\file.xml
> >
> >is addressible using the URI
> >
> >file:////machine/share/dir/file.xml
>
> Thanks Michael. One more to add to the test grouping!
> 4 slashes now!!! Why must it be so confusing?
Actually, either 2 or 4 slashes is defensible. Remember that the general
scheme of a typical URL (excluding things like mailto: and news:) is
scheme://machine/path
where the third slash serves both to separate the machine from the path
and to indicate that the path is absolute. So a file: URL referring to
the local file /bar/baz looks like:
file://localhost/bar/baz
Equivalently, you can write
file:///bar/baz
leaving the machine name is empty, because the local system is meant.
This is the most common form, so typically file URLs begin "file:///".
Now we have to decide whether we are going to interpret an UNC name as
containing separate machine and path information, or as just being a path.
In the former case, the natural approach is to map the first component
onto the "machine" part of the URL schema, like this:
file://foo/bar/baz
This is naturally interpreted as being the file /bar/baz on machine foo
rather than the local machine, or \\foo\bar\baz in UNCspeak.
Alternatively, you can say that the UNC name is just a path with an
unusual first component "//foo", in which case the UNC name \\foo\bar\baz
would be written
file://localhost//foo/bar/baz
which can be abbreviated to
file:////foo/bar/baz
--
John Cowan jcowan@r... http://www.reutershealth.com
"Not to know The Smiths is not to know K.X.U." --K.X.U.
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