Re: LYNX-DEV Question about BASE implementation

[Klaus Weide]

On Sat, 19 Oct 1996, Subir Grewal wrote:

> I noticed that when I use BASE, the internal links are resolved by tagging
> the URL in BASE to the front of the document.  I was wondering whether
> there's a difference between relative links and internal links and
> whether clients are expected to discriminate between the two (esp. in
> reference to implementing BASE).  The problem is that I have to create an
> alternative to a pgae (we're having a sort of contest to pick the best
> design) and I have to use BASE so that the relative links don't break.
> But if I do use BASE, the internal links break (the original document
> doesn't have the anchors I'm using.
> 
> cf.
> <URL:http://www.nyu.edu/pages/advocacy/>
> <URL:http://www.nyu.edu/pages/wsn/subir/canyu.html>
> 
> The first is the original doc and the second is my interpretation.

  OK, after looking at those documents I understand what you mean.
You would like HREFs to "#f" (a fragment only) be resolved relative to
something else than HREFs to "b/c" (a path).  Looking at RFC 1808, which
spells out the rules for Relative URLs, there is no provision for that.
Both kinds of relative URLs get resolved relative to a "well-defined"
base URL, and there is no provision for establishing more than one
base URLs for the same document for different purposes.

  So it seems that, according to that RFC, a <BASE> tag is an
all-or-nothing affair: if you have it, it applies to all HREFs, whether
you like it or not.  Maybe it would make sense to have the URL or HTML
specs say something different, or to have something like an URL which
explicitly means "*this* document", but AFAIK that is not the case.

  I don't know how other browsers handle this, maybe some of them are
violating the specs in such a case, in favor of what seems to make
more sense.

  Anyway, for the moment you will have to fully specify (i.e. include
at least the absolute path) either all the path-type links or all the
"internal" (fragment-type) links.

  Klaus

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