Re: File URL to Alias?

Subject: Re: File URL to Alias?
From: Ron Hunsinger <email@hidden>
Date: Tue, 25 Feb 2014 16:49:18 -0800

On Feb 25, 2014, at 5:21 AM, koenig.yvan <email@hidden> wrote:

In fact, URLs created under Mavericks are supposed to no longer include localhost.

I'm not sure what you mean by "supposed to". Apple takes great pains to be standards-compliant wherever possible.

According to RFC 1738: Uniform Resource Locators (URL)

3.10 FILES

The file URL scheme is used to designate files accessible on a
particular host computer. This scheme, unlike most other URL schemes,
does not designate a resource that is universally accessible over the
Internet.

A file URL takes the form:

file://<host>/<path>

where <host> is the fully qualified domain name of the system on
which the <path> is accessible, and <path> is a hierarchical
directory path of the form <directory>/<directory>/.../<name>.

For example, a VMS file

DISK$USER:[MY.NOTES]NOTE123456.TXT

might become

<URL:file://vms.host.edu/disk$user/my/notes/note12345.txt>

As a special case, <host> can be the string "localhost" or the empty
string; this is interpreted as `the machine from which the URL is
being interpreted'.

The file URL scheme is unusual in that it does not specify an
Internet protocol or access method for such files; as such, its
utility in network protocols between hosts is limited.

That is, the standard says that specifying or omitting "localhost" are equally valid.

The general dictum known as Postel's Law (aka "Robustness Principle", see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robustness_principle) says: be conservative in what you do, be liberal in what you accept from others.

In particular, when you receive a file: URL from someone else, be liberal about how you interpret it. Your code must be prepared to properly handle file: URLs whether the optional "localhost" is present or absent. For completeness, it should also allow an arbitrary FQDN in that position (but you can reasonable insist that the FQDN must resolve to (an interface on) the same computer as "localhost", because otherwise there's no standard way to actually access the file).

-Ron Hunsinger

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Follow-Ups:
- Re: File URL to Alias?
  - From: Shane Stanley <email@hidden>
- Re: File URL to Alias?
  - From: Shane Stanley <email@hidden>

References:
	>File URL to Alias? (From: Christopher Stone <email@hidden>)
	>Re: File URL to Alias? (From: "koenig.yvan" <email@hidden>)
	>Re: File URL to Alias? (From: Shane Stanley <email@hidden>)
	>Re: File URL to Alias? (From: Shane Stanley <email@hidden>)
	>Re: File URL to Alias? (From: "koenig.yvan" <email@hidden>)

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