Re: URL library?

From: Andrey Semashev (andrey.semashev_at_[hidden])
Date: 2020-01-21 18:47:10

On 2020-01-21 21:39, Andrey Semashev wrote:
> 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:
>>
>> Â Â Â  URLÂ Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â  = scheme ":" hier-part [ "?" query ] [ "#" fragment ]
>> Â Â Â  URL-reference = URL / relative-ref
>> Â Â Â  absolute-URLÂ  = 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.

Also, I'll add that WhatWG is a web-related working group, and URIs are 
used in many other areas. In my case it's telephony and media processing.

>>> 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.