What Is the Structure of a URL?

The structure of a URL is defined by the URL specification, see http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc2396.txt. Generally, a URL consists of 7 parts:

• Protocol Name - Identifies the communication protocol through which this resource is made available, like "http://" or "ftp://".
• Host Name - Identifies the computer host that manages this resource, like "www.w3.org", or "dev.fyicenter.com".
• Port Number - Identifies the communication port where hosting computer is taking requests, like ":8080".
• Path Name - Identifies the directory where the resource is located, like "/", or "/faq/".
• File Name - Identifies the file name of the resource, like "index.html", or "xanimal18.jpg".
• Bookmark - Identifies a bookmark within the target document, like "#narrow".
• Query String - Provides parameters to the resource manager, like "?hl=en&q=xhtml".

If you have a URL, you can easily break it into parts. For example, "http://www.fyicenter.com:8080/faq/xhtml/index.html#footer?q=test" can be broken into 7 parts like this:

• "http://" - Protocol Name.
• "www.fyicenter.com"- Host Name.
• ":8080" - Port Number.
• "/faq/xhtml/" - Path Name.
• "index.html" - File Name.
• "#footer" - Bookmark.
• "?q=test" - Query String.

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