base href problems

[Jeff Thies]

I have some pages where I need to use a base href tag.

Mac behaviour is different than PC.

I have this:

<base href="http://some_domain.com " />

The page would be: some_domain.com/some_directory/some_page.htm

If I use a relative link:

<a href="some_othe r_page.htm">som e other page</a>

IE5 PC goes here: some_domain.com/some_directory/some_other_page .htm

IE5 Mac goes here:
some_domain.com/some_other_page .htm

Which is correct?

Jeff

[Peter Foti]

Re: base href problems

"Jeff Thies" <nospam@nospam. net> wrote in message
news:Tqdjb.5698 5$mQ2.43182@new sread1.news.atl .earthlink.net. ..[color=blue]
> I have some pages where I need to use a base href tag.
>
> Mac behaviour is different than PC.
>
> I have this:
>
> <base href="http://some_domain.com " />
>
> The page would be: some_domain.com/some_directory/some_page.htm
>
> If I use a relative link:
>
> <a href="some_othe r_page.htm">som e other page</a>
>
> IE5 PC goes here: some_domain.com/some_directory/some_other_page .htm
>
> IE5 Mac goes here:
> some_domain.com/some_other_page .htm
>
> Which is correct?[/color]

According to the spec:

http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/struct/links.html#h-12.4

I would say the Mac version is correct.

Regards,
Peter Foti

[Jukka K. Korpela]

Re: base href problems

"Jeff Thies" <nospam@nospam. net> wrote:
[color=blue]
> I have some pages where I need to use a base href tag.[/color]

No, you don't. You never need to use it. It can always be replaced by
the use of suitable absolute URLs.
[color=blue]
> Mac behaviour is different than PC.[/color]

There are lots of browsers on each platform. Could you give a small
hint of what you mean, like the first letters of the browser names?
[color=blue]
> <base href="http://some_domain.com " />[/color]

There is currently no such domain. It isn't a suitable fictitious
sample either, since it lacks the .example indicator.
[color=blue]
> The page would be: some_domain.com/some_directory/some_page.htm[/color]

What page is that? It's a relative URL, which probably means something
quite different from what you expect.
[color=blue]
> If I use a relative link:
>
> <a href="some_othe r_page.htm">som e other page</a>
>
> IE5 PC goes here: some_domain.com/some_directory/some_other_page .htm[/color]

No, it does not.
[color=blue]
> IE5 Mac goes here:
> some_domain.com/some_other_page .htm[/color]

No, it does not.
[color=blue]
> Which is correct?[/color]

Neither. Please post some facts for an analysis, or check the URL
specifications yourself.

--
Yucca, http://www.cs.tut.fi/~jkorpela/
Pages about Web authoring: http://www.cs.tut.fi/~jkorpela/www.html

[Kris]

Re: base href problems

In article <Tqdjb.56985$mQ 2.43182@newsrea d1.news.atl.ear thlink.net>,
"Jeff Thies" <nospam@nospam. net> wrote:
[color=blue]
> I have some pages where I need to use a base href tag.
>
> Mac behaviour is different than PC.
>
> I have this:
>
> <base href="http://some_domain.com " />
>
> The page would be: some_domain.com/some_directory/some_page.htm
>
> If I use a relative link:
>
> <a href="some_othe r_page.htm">som e other page</a>
>
> IE5 PC goes here: some_domain.com/some_directory/some_other_page .htm
>
> IE5 Mac goes here:
> some_domain.com/some_other_page .htm
>
> Which is correct?[/color]

IE Mac. Seems IE5 PC ignores the BASE element for some reason. Try to
find out why, because it normally does not ignore it like that.

--
Kris
kristiaan@xs4al l.netherlands (nl)
"We called him Tortoise because he taught us" said the Mock Turtle.

[Stan Brown]

Re: base href problems

In article <Tqdjb.56985$mQ 2.43182@newsrea d1.news.atl.ear thlink.net>
in comp.infosystem s.www.authoring.html, Jeff Thies
<nospam@nospam. net> wrote:[color=blue]
>I have some pages where I need to use a base href tag.[/color]

May one ask why? Often people jump at that as a solution for a
particular problem, when in fact a different solution would be
better.
[color=blue]
>Mac behaviour is different than PC.
><base href="http://some_domain.com " />
>The page would be: some_domain.com/some_directory/some_page.htm[/color]
[color=blue]
>If I use a relative link:
><a href="some_othe r_page.htm">som e other page</a>
>IE5 PC goes here: some_domain.com/some_directory/some_other_page .htm
>IE5 Mac goes here: some_domain.com/some_other_page .htm
>
> Which is correct?[/color]

The Mac version. BASE means that any relative URLS should be
resolved relative to that rather than to the actual URL of the page.

--
Stan Brown, Oak Road Systems, Cortland County, New York, USA

http://OakRoadSystems.com/

HTML 4.01 spec: http://www.w3.org/TR/html401/
validator: http://validator.w3.org/
CSS 2 spec: http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-CSS2/
2.1 changes: http://www.w3.org/TR/CSS21/changes.html
validator: http://jigsaw.w3.org/css-validator/

[Daniel R. Tobias]

Re: base href problems

Jeff Thies wrote:[color=blue]
> I have this:
>
> <base href="http://some_domain.com " />[/color]

Well, since domains aren't allowed to have underscores, this can't be an
actual address. (If you want to cite a hypothetical address, you could
use one of the RFC-compliant names allocated for this purpose such as
"example.co m", "example.or g", "whatever.examp le", etc.)

I would suggest you include the trailing slash in the URI, as
"http://somedomain.exam ple/"; while it's not mandatory in this case,
there may be some browser bugs in interpreting relative references to a
base URI without the slash. (If it were a URI ending in a subdirectory
name rather than a domain name, the slash would be necessary to cause
the base to be that directory rather than a filename within the
directory one level higher.)

Also, the "/>" ending is valid only in XHTML; if you're using an HTML
doctype, ">" should be used instead.

--
== Dan ==
Dan's Mail Format Site: http://mailformat.dan.info/
Dan's Web Tips: http://webtips.dan.info/
Dan's Domain Site: http://domains.dan.info/

[Alan J. Flavell]

Re: base href problems

On Fri, 17 Oct 2003, Daniel R. Tobias wrote:
[color=blue]
> I would suggest you include the trailing slash in the URI, as
> "http://somedomain.exam ple/"[/color]

<pedant>
Actually, that's not _the_ trailing slash: that's the slash which
separates the domain part of the URL from the URLpath part, as in

http://somedomain.example/path/to/whatever

Just that in this case, the URLpath part is null, but you can imagine
it standing there - to the right of this non-trailing slash ;-)

These two URLs, http://somedomain.example/path/to/whatever and
http://somedomain.example/path/to/whatever/ are definitively
different: they differ by the latter having a trailing slash.

But thes URLs, http://somedomain.example and
http://somedomain.example/ are defined to be identical: they
differ only by omitting the slash which separates the domain part from
the URLpath part, and _that_ slash is optional when the URLpath part
is empty.

</pedant>
[color=blue]
> ; while it's not mandatory in this case,[/color]

right
[color=blue]
> there may be some browser bugs in interpreting relative references to a
> base URI without the slash.[/color]

I'm not disagreeing with that. Just quibbling over terminology.

cheers