Re: URL library?

From: Andrey Semashev (andrey.semashev_at_[hidden])
Date: 2020-01-21 18:39:55

On 2020-01-21 18:51, Vinnie Falco wrote:
> On Tue, Jan 21, 2020 at 2:13 AM Andrey Semashev via Boost
> <boost_at_[hidden]> wrote:
>> I'd be more interested in a more generic URI library.
>> Along with a few associated algorithms, e.g. those described in:
>> https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc3986
> 
> Yes, this library does that. I do not use the term "URI" because it is
> confusing and pointless. They are all URLs now. My library follows the
> RFC, except that I have renamed the top level production rules to
> reflect this preference:
> 
>     URL           = scheme ":" hier-part [ "?" query ] [ "#" fragment ]
>     URL-reference = URL / relative-ref
>     absolute-URL  = scheme ":" hier-part [ "?" query ]
> 
> I didn't invent this idea, deprecating the word "URI" and using "URL"
> consistently in its place is recommended by WhatWG.

There is a semantic difference between URI and URL - the former is an 
identifier and the latter is a locator (i.e. a path to a resource 
location). You can treat locator as an identifier but not the other way 
around. Using the term URL to refer to an URI is confusing.

The reason I'm interested particularly in URIs is because I have to deal 
with them, not so much with URLs.

>> Why not uri and uri_view.
> 
> First, I don't use the term "uri" ever. But i think you're asking, why
> not "url" and "url_view?" Because `url::url` and `url::url_view` look
> bad, they repeat a word. Thus we have `url::view` and `url::value`,
> which are sensible.

Well, no, not really. I know 'using namespace abc;' is not something 
universally welcome, but its is a valid use case nonetheless. After that 
having `view` and `value` is no longer sensible.

I would still prefer `boost::uris::uri` and `boost::uris::uri_view`. 
Note that the namespace is plural.