HTTP location
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| HTTP |
| Persistence · Compression · HTTP Secure |
| Headers |
| ETag · Cookie · Referrer · Location |
| Status codes |
| 301 Moved permanently |
| 302 Found |
| 303 See Other |
| 403 Forbidden |
| 404 Not Found |
The HTTP Location header is used to force a web browser to load a different web page. It is passed as part of the Server Response by a web server when the requested URL has:
- Moved temporarily
- Moved permanently, or
- A new resource has been created
The HTTP Location header should be sent with a HTTP Response Code of 3xx.
While the internet standard RFC 1945 (HTTP 1.0) requires a complete absolute URI for redirection[1][2], the most popular web browsers support the passing of a Relative URL as the value for a Location: header.[citation needed]
Contents |
[edit] Example
The internet standard requires an absoluteURI token to follow a Location: header, which means it must contain a scheme[3] (e.g., http:, https:, telnet:, mailto:)[4] and conforms to scheme-specific syntax and semantics. For example, the HTTP scheme-specific syntax and semantics for HTTP URLs requires a "host" (web server address) and "absolute path", with optional components of "port" and "query". In the case that there is no absolute path present, it must be given as "/" when used as a Request-URI for a resource.[5]
Client request:
GET /index.html HTTP/1.1 Host: www.example.com
Server response:
HTTP/1.1 302 Found Location: http://www.wikipedia.org/index.php
[edit] Relative URL Example
This example, while incorrect based on the internet standard[6], works in all popular browsers.[citation needed]
Client request:
GET /blog HTTP/1.1 Host: www.example.com
Server response:
HTTP/1.1 302 Found Location: /blog/
[edit] Notes
Not to be confused with JavaScript location variable.
[edit] References
- ^ RFC 2616 (HTTP 1.1)
- ^ RFC 1945 (HTTP 1.0)
- ^ http://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc3305.txt
- ^ http://www.iana.org/assignments/uri-schemes.html
- ^ http://www.w3.org/Protocols/rfc2616/rfc2616-sec3.html#sec3.2.2
- ^ http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc2616#section-14.30
