# URL Stability: 2 - Stable The `url` module provides utilities for URL resolution and parsing. It can be accessed using: ```js const url = require('url'); ``` ## URL Strings and URL Objects A URL string is a structured string containing multiple meaningful components. When parsed, a URL object is returned containing properties for each of these components. The following details each of the components of a parsed URL. The example `'http://user:pass@host.com:8080/p/a/t/h?query=string#hash'` is used to illustrate each. ``` ┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐ │ href │ ├──────────┬┬───────────┬─────────────────┬───────────────────────────┬───────┤ │ protocol ││ auth │ host │ path │ hash │ │ ││ ├──────────┬──────┼──────────┬────────────────┤ │ │ ││ │ hostname │ port │ pathname │ search │ │ │ ││ │ │ │ ├─┬──────────────┤ │ │ ││ │ │ │ │ │ query │ │ " http: // user:pass @ host.com : 8080 /p/a/t/h ? query=string #hash " │ ││ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ └──────────┴┴───────────┴──────────┴──────┴──────────┴─┴──────────────┴───────┘ (all spaces in the "" line should be ignored -- they're purely for formatting) ``` ### urlObject.href The `href` property is the full URL string that was parsed with both the `protocol` and `host` components converted to lower-case. For example: `'http://user:pass@host.com:8080/p/a/t/h?query=string#hash'` ### urlObject.protocol The `protocol` property identifies the URL's lower-cased protocol scheme. For example: `'http:'` ### urlObject.slashes The `slashes` property is a `boolean` with a value of `true` if two ASCII forward-slash characters (`/`) are required following the colon in the `protocol`. ### urlObject.host The `host` property is the full lower-cased host portion of the URL, including the `port` if specified. For example: `'host.com:8080'` ### urlObject.auth The `auth` property is the username and password portion of the URL, also referred to as "userinfo". This string subset follows the `protocol` and double slashes (if present) and preceeds the `host` component, delimited by an ASCII "at sign" (`@`). The format of the string is `{username}[:{password}]`, with the `[:{password}]` portion being optional. For example: `'user:pass'` ### urlObject.hostname The `hostname` property is the lower-cased host name portion of the `host` component *without* the `port` included. For example: `'host.com'` ### urlObject.port The `port` property is the numeric port portion of the `host` component. For example: `'8080'` ### urlObject.pathname The `pathname` property consists of the entire path section of the URL. This is everything following the `host` (including the `port`) and before the start of the `query` or `hash` components, delimited by either the ASCII question mark (`?`) or hash (`#`) characters. For example `'/p/a/t/h'` No decoding of the path string is performed. ### urlObject.search The `search` property consists of the entire "query string" portion of the URL, including the leading ASCII question mark (`?`) character. For example: `'?query=string'` No decoding of the query string is performed. ### urlObject.path The `path` property is a concatenation of the `pathname` and `search` components. For example: `'/p/a/t/h?query=string'` No decoding of the `path` is performed. ### urlObject.query The `query` property is either the "params" portion of the query string ( everything *except* the leading ASCII question mark (`?`), or an object returned by the [`querystring`][] module's `parse()` method: For example: `'query=string'` or `{'query': 'string'}` If returned as a string, no decoding of the query string is performed. If returned as an object, both keys and values are decoded. ### urlObject.hash The `hash` property consists of the "fragment" portion of the URL including the leading ASCII hash (`#`) character. For example: `'#hash'` ## url.format(urlObject) * `urlObject` {Object} A URL object (either as returned by `url.parse()` or constructed otherwise). The `url.format()` method processes the given URL object and returns a formatted URL string. The formatting process essentially operates as follows: * A new empty string `result` is created. * If `urlObject.protocol` is a string, it is appended as-is to `result`. * Otherwise, if `urlObject.protocol` is not `undefined` and is not a string, an [`Error`][] is thrown. * For all string values of `urlObject.protocol` that *do not end* with an ASCII colon (`:`) character, the literal string `:` will be appended to `result`. * If either the `urlObject.slashes` property is true, `urlObject.protocol` begins with one of `http`, `https`, `ftp`, `gopher`, or `file`, or `urlObject.protocol` is `undefined`, the literal string `//` will be appended to `result`. * If the value of the `urlObject.auth` property is truthy, and either `urlObject.host` or `urlObject.hostname` are not `undefined`, the value of `urlObject.auth` will be coerced into a string and appended to `result` followed by the literal string `@`. * If the `urlObject.host` property is `undefined` then: * If the `urlObject.hostname` is a string, it is appended to `result`. * Otherwise, if `urlObject.hostname` is not `undefined` and is not a string, an [`Error`][] is thrown. * If the `urlObject.port` property value is truthy, and `urlObject.hostname` is not `undefined`: * The literal string `:` is appended to `result`, and * The value of `urlObject.port` is coerced to a string and appended to `result`. * Otherwise, if the `urlObject.host` property value is truthy, the value of `urlObject.host` is coerced to a string and appended to `result`. * If the `urlObject.pathname` property is a string that is not an empty string: * If the `urlObject.pathname` *does not start* with an ASCII forward slash (`/`), then the literal string '/' is appended to `result`. * The value of `urlObject.pathname` is appended to `result`. * Otherwise, if `urlObject.pathname` is not `undefined` and is not a string, an [`Error`][] is thrown. * If the `urlObject.search` property is `undefined` and if the `urlObject.query` property is an `Object`, the literal string `?` is appended to `result` followed by the output of calling the [`querystring`][] module's `stringify()` method passing the value of `urlObject.query`. * Otherwise, if `urlObject.search` is a string: * If the value of `urlObject.search` *does not start* with the ASCII question mark (`?`) character, the literal string `?` is appended to `result`. * The value of `urlObject.search` is appended to `result`. * Otherwise, if `urlObject.search` is not `undefined` and is not a string, an [`Error`][] is thrown. * If the `urlObject.hash` property is a string: * If the value of `urlObject.hash` *does not start* with the ASCII hash (`#`) character, the literal string `#` is appended to `result`. * The value of `urlObject.hash` is appended to `result`. * Otherwise, if the `urlObject.hash` property is not `undefined` and is not a string, an [`Error`][] is thrown. * `result` is returned. ## url.parse(urlString[, parseQueryString[, slashesDenoteHost]]) * `urlString` {string} The URL string to parse. * `parseQueryString` {boolean} If `true`, the `query` property will always be set to an object returned by the [`querystring`][] module's `parse()` method. If `false`, the `query` property on the returned URL object will be an unparsed, undecoded string. Defaults to `false`. * `slashesDenoteHost` {boolean} If `true`, the first token after the literal string `//` and preceeding the next `/` will be interpreted as the `host`. For instance, given `//foo/bar`, the result would be `{host: 'foo', pathname: '/bar'}` rather than `{pathname: '//foo/bar'}`. Defaults to `false`. The `url.parse()` method takes a URL string, parses it, and returns a URL object. ## url.resolve(from, to) * `from` {string} The Base URL being resolved against. * `to` {string} The HREF URL being resolved. The `url.resolve()` method resolves a target URL relative to a base URL in a manner similar to that of a Web browser resolving an anchor tag HREF. For example: ```js url.resolve('/one/two/three', 'four') // '/one/two/four' url.resolve('http://example.com/', '/one') // 'http://example.com/one' url.resolve('http://example.com/one', '/two') // 'http://example.com/two' ``` ## Escaped Characters URLs are only permitted to contain a certain range of characters. Spaces (`' '`) and the following characters will be automatically escaped in the properties of URL objects: ``` < > " ` \r \n \t { } | \ ^ ' ``` For example, the ASCII space character (`' '`) is encoded as `%20`. The ASCII forward slash (`/`) character is encoded as `%3C`. [`Error`]: errors.html#errors_class_error [`querystring`]: querystring.html