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URLs

URLs are the address of a computer file together with the method which is used to interpret the data in the file. The address includes both the name of the computer, complete with Internet domain, and the name of the file on that computer including the directory path to the file starting at the root.

Example: http://web.mit.edu/cwis/academics/index.html

URL
Uniform Resource Locator
Format
<method>://<computer>/<path><file>
method
http
ftp
or a few others
computer
computer name with domain, typically ending in .com, .edu, etc.
Example: web.mit.edu
path
Series of nested directories ending with the directory holding the file in question
Example: cwis/academics/
file
Name of the file, typically one word followed by a dot followed by a suffix which indicates the type of data in the file. For most Web pages, the suffix is html.
Example: index.html
Note: if the method is http and if the computer and the path are the same as those for the current page, then the URL can be simply the file name.

URLs are used in the Web to denote Web pages and other files that contain resources, including graphical images (typical suffixes .gif or .jpeg), audio (typical suffix .au), video (typical suffixes .qt or .mpeg).


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