Absolute URLs

[ruggy]

Hi,

I am of the understanding the the correct URL formats are as follows:

<a href="/page.htm">page</a>
<a href="../page.htm>page</a>
<a href="http://www.domain.com/page.htm">page</a>
<a href="page.htm">page</a>
<a href="../../page.htm">page</a>

However, i've just seen someone using:

<a href="./page.htm">page</a>

where page.htm is in the same directory. Notice there is only one '.'. Is this correct? The link still works bu i thought if you wanted the same directory then you should use:

<a href="/page.htm">page</a>
<a href="http://www.domain.com/page.htm">page</a>
<a href="page.htm">page</a>

and if you want to go up a directory you use:


<a href="../page.htm>page</a>

??

[Andy]

These are relative URLs:

<a href="/page.htm">page</a> is always relative to the root directory. For the current directory, you must add one dot or leave off the slash.

<a href="./page.htm">page</a> is ok to use for the current directory but seems unnecessary. You probably see this where the URL has been dynamically generated by a custom script or the webmaster does this due to their coding standards (where developers working in a team code in the same style so they can easily follow each others code and limit bugs).

[johnstuart]

The person writing that url was probably just copying linux shell commands where ./ refers to the current directory.