Re: lynx-dev dev.24 Archive link runaround

[Philip Webb]

990426 Greg Marr wrote: 
> Say in  http://www.flora.org/lynx-dev/index.html
> there is a link to "about-lynx.html".
> If you entered the URL  http://www.flora.org/lynx-dev/
> and then selected that link,
> Lynx would ask for  http://www.flora.org/lynx-dev/about-lynx.html .
> Now say you entered the URL  http://www.flora.org/lynx-dev
> and the server didn't find a file called  lynx-dev ,
> but did find a directory called  lynx-dev/
> and so sent back the contents of  index.html  in that directory.
> As far as Lynx knows, you are looking at  http://www.flora.org/lynx-dev ,
> so when you select that link,
> it will ask for  http://www.flora.org/about-lynx.html
> instead of  http://www.flora.org/lynx-dev/about-lynx.html .

thanx for this very clear explanation,
which deals with a real-life example, not dogmas or doctrines.
this problem about relative URLs hasn't been mentioned before,
but if the client makes your assumption, things will get confused.
 
> What the server can do, when you've entered an *invalid* URL,
> is return a `Moved Permanently' status message redirecting you
> to  http://www.flora.org/lynx-dev/ .  Lynx will then disconnect
> from the server, reconnect to the same server, and ask for that URL
> Now when it gets the page, it knows how to properly handle relative URLs.

so Flora could send that message:
one wonders why it has been set up to do what it does instead.
 
>  http://www.perl.com/CPAN  is a file
> that gives you a list of all the CPAN servers and has a CGI backend
> that allows you to select the one you want to use when accessing the CPAN.
>  http://www.perl.com/CPAN/  and
>  http://www.perl.com/CPAN/blah/blah/blah.html
> redirect you to a server within the CPAN network
> that seems to be the best choice for you at the time.
> In the case of the second URL, it also brings you to the location
> of  blah/blah/blah.html  within that server's CPAN archive.
 
yes, i understood that,
but the fact that the added  /  causes redirection seems arbitrary:
how are users supposed to know how these URLs will differ in their effects?

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