URL

URI vs URL

• URI
  • URIs are Opaque Identifiers.
  • URI can be used to represent anything (including Non-Document Resources).
  • There’s no guarantee that a URI has a representation.
  • A URI is nothing but an identifier.
  • URI is the super set of URL.
• URL
  • A URL is an identifier that can be dereferenced.
  • A URL is a URI that MUST include how to locate the resource.
  • A URL is a URI that is hierarchical and absolute.
  • A URL is always a URI.

Encoding URL

Translates a string into application/x-www-form-urlencoded format using a specific encoding scheme.

Is urlencoding required? It depends on the Content-Type in the HTTP headers. A value of application/x-www-form-urlencoded means that your POST body will need to be URL encoded just like a GET parameter string. A value of multipart/form-data means that you'll be using content delimiters and NOT url encoding the content.

E.g. in Java

String[] paths = new String[]{path};
String encodedPaths = URLEncoder.encode(Arrays.toString(paths), "UTF-8");

Underscore

Based on the RFC2396, the URL shouldn't contains underscore