HTTP location
{{Short description|Instruction by web server containing the intended location of a web page.}}{{HTTP}}
The HTTP Location header field is returned in responses from an HTTP server under two circumstances:
- To ask a web browser to load a different web page (URL redirection). In this circumstance, the Location header should be sent with an HTTP status code of 3xx. It is passed as part of the response by a web server when the requested URI has:
- * Moved temporarily;
- * Moved permanently; or
- * Processed a request, e.g. a POSTed form, and is providing the result of that request at a different URI
- To provide information about the location of a newly created resource. In this circumstance, the Location header should be sent with an HTTP status code of 201 or 202.{{cite book|last=Richardson|first=Leonard|title=RESTful Web Services|year=2007|publisher=O'Reilly|location=Sebastopol|isbn=978-0-596-52926-0|pages=[https://archive.org/details/restfulwebservic00rich_0/page/228 228–230]|url-access=registration|url=https://archive.org/details/restfulwebservic00rich_0/page/228}}
An obsolete version of the HTTP 1.1 specifications (IETF RFC 2616) required a complete absolute URI for redirection.{{cite IETF |title=Hypertext Transfer Protocol -- HTTP/1.1 |rfc=2616 |sectionname=Location |section=14.30 |date=June 1999 |publisher=IETF |accessdate= }} The IETF HTTP working group found that the most popular web browsers tolerate the passing of a relative URL[https://web.archive.org/web/20110917055643/http://trac.tools.ietf.org/wg/httpbis/trac/ticket/185 IETF HTTPbis Working Group Ticket 185] and, consequently, the updated HTTP 1.1 specifications (IETF RFC 7231) relaxed the original constraint, allowing the use of relative URLs in Location headers.{{cite IETF |title=Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP/1.1): Semantics and Content |rfc=7231 |sectionname=Location |section=7.1.2 |date=June 2014 |publisher=IETF |accessdate= }}
Examples
= Absolute URL example =
Absolute URLs are URLs that start with a scheme{{cite IETF |title=Uniform Resource Identifier (URI): Generic Syntax |rfc=3986 |date=January 2005 |publisher=IETF }} (e.g.,
A client requesting {{mono|
GET /index.html HTTP/1.1
Host: www.example.com
may get the server response
HTTP/1.1 302 Found
Location: https://www.example.org/index.php
{{anchor|Relative_URL_example}}
= Relative URL absolute path example =
Relative URLs are URLs that do not include a scheme or a host. In order to be understood they must be combined with the URL of the original request.
A client request for {{mono|
HTTP/1.1 302 Found
Location: /articles/
The URL of the location is expanded by the client to {{mono|
= Relative URL relative path example =
A client request for {{mono|
HTTP/1.1 302 Found
Location: 2020/zoo
The client removes the path segment after the last slash of the original URL and appends the relative path resulting in {{mono|
See also
References
{{Reflist}}