There are URLs (Uniform Resource Locators) and URIs (Uniform Resource Identifiers). Now I make the cool statement: Both mean the same! This is true for most of the people except some zealots.
Uniform resource locator's are addresses to stuff on the Internet (or your local computer). URI's is the same, but have also the protocol specified. http://www.mypage.com/path
http:// |
Stands for the protocol used (here: Hypertext Transfer Protocol) |
|
www |
Stands for the name of the transmitters hard drive or root folder of the transmitter hard drive |
Domain name |
mypage |
Is the mid-level-domain defining the owner of the internet site |
|
com |
Is the top-level-domain and stands for a commercial internet site |
|
path |
Contains subfolders and the file name. Some pages or files are created dynamically and contain therefore temporary data. |
http://www.mypage.com:8080/path is the URL as above but uses an other TCP/IP port as the default one. Usually http uses port number 80. However this would result that just one web browser per IP address could be used. Assigning other port numbers allows to expand it. The port number 8080 is often used as additional http port.
http://www.mypage.com:8080/path?mydata=hello now not just the the address is there, but also an additionally parameter with a value is added.
http://www.mypage.com:8080/path?mydata=hello&myotherdata=you and now a second parameter.
http://www.mypage.com:8080/path?mydata=hello&myotherdata=you#here this link points additionally to an anchor inside the address defined by the URL.
There is also the possibility to pass the IP address http://www.mypage.inc@192.168.1.2