Documentation

URL class refers to Uniform Resource Locator and can be used to locate resources on the Internet. An example of a url is

http://www-itg.lbl.gov/Akenti

A URL is comprised of the following:
protocol - the protocol (http, file, ldap etc.) that should be used
host - the host to be connected to
port - the port to connect to
file - the file/information to be retrieved

In the above example, the protocol to use is http and the host to connect is www-itg.lbl.gov . The port information is not given and hence the default port is used. The file component to be retrieved is Akenti . If a directory is given, an index of files that belong to that directory will be displayed. If a default file (for ex., index.html) is available under that directory, as configured in the web server, then that file will be retrieved. You must specify a filename if the file to be retrieved is different from the default file in that directory.

The default port for the http protocol is 80. Any other port should be explicitly mentioned in the URL as follows
http://imglib.lbl.gov:8080/downloads

There is no Anchor '#" support for this URL. Hence it will be considered as a part of the file to be retrieved. This URL is a final class and should not be extended.

The methods supported by this class involve setting or getting componets of the URL name. The URL also contains a reference to a URLHandler which refers to a URLHandlerImpl which is a friend class to URL. The URLHandlerImpl implements the methods to connect to a URL and retrieve information from it.