A.12 library( url ): Analysing and constructing URL

This library deals with the analysis and construction of a URL, Universal Resource Locator. URL is the basis for communicating locations of resources (data) on the web. A URL consists of a protocol identifier (e.g. HTTP, FTP), and a protocol-specific syntax further defining the location. URLs are standardized in RFC-1738.

The implementation in this library covers only a small portion of the defined protocols. Though the initial implementation followed RFC-1738 strictly, the current is more relaxed to deal with frequent violations of the standard encountered in practical use.

This library contains code by Jan Wielemaker who wrote the initial version and Lukas Faulstich who added various extensions.

parse_url(?URL, ?Parts)

Construct or analyse a URL. URL is an atom holding a URL or a variable. Parts is a list of components. Each component is of the format Name(Value). Defined components are:

protocol(Protocol)

The used protocol. This is, after the optional url:, an identifier separated from the remainder of the URL using :. parse_url/2 assumes the http protocol if no protocol is specified and the URL can be parsed as a valid HTTP url. In addition to the RFC-1738 specified protocols, the file: protocol is supported as well.

host(Host)

Host-name or IP-address on which the resource is located. Supported by all network-based protocols.

port(Port)

Integer port-number to access on the Host. This only appears if the port is explicitly specified in the URL. Implicit default ports (e.g. 80 for HTTP) do not appear in the part-list.

path(Path)

(File-) path addressed by the URL. This is supported for the ftp, http and file protocols. If no path appears, the library generates the path /.

search(ListOfNameValue)

Search-specification of HTTP URL. This is the part after the ?, normally used to transfer data from HTML forms that use the `GET' protocol. In the URL it consists of a www-form-encoded list of Name=Value pairs. This is mapped to a list of Prolog Name=Value terms with decoded names and values.

fragment(Fragment)

Fragment specification of HTTP URL. This is the part after the # character.

The example below illustrates the all this for an HTTP UTL.

?- parse_url('http://swi.psy.uva.nl/message.cgi?msg=Hello+World%21#x',
             P).
P = [ protocol(http),
      host('swi.psy.uva.nl'),
      fragment(x),
      search([ msg = 'Hello World!'
             ]),
      path('/message.cgi')
    ].

By instantiating the parts-list this predicate can be used to create a URL.

parse_url(?URL, +BaseURL, ?Parts)

Same as parse_url/2, but dealing a url that is relative to the given BaseURL. This is used to analyse or construct a URI found in the document behind BaseURL.

global_url(+URL, +BaseURL, -AbsoluteUrl)

Transform a (possibly) relative URL into a global one.

http_location(?Parts, ?Location)

Similar to parse_url/2, but only deals with the location part of an HTTP URL. That is, the path, search and fragment specifiers. In the HTTP protocol, the first line of a message is

Action Location [HTTP/HttpVersion]

Location is either an atom or a code-list.

www_form_encode(?Value, ?WwwFormEncoded)

Translate between a string-literal and the x-www-form-encoded representation used in path and search specifications of the HTTP protocol.

Encoding implies mapping space to +, preserving alpha-numercial characters, map newlines to %0D%0A and anything else to %XX. When decoding, newlines appear as a single newline (10) character.