网址末尾的“正斜杠”是否有任何含义？

Question

For example:

http://www.example.com/index.php?arg1=val1&arg2/

The ? specifies the start of GET values, but does the trailing / have any meaning to a URL?

Reason I'm asking is because this is the first time I've tried it on my website, and all my internal links to CSS, images, etc. (which were all relative links to the current directory) didn't work, and so I need to provide the full path to get them to work in case a user types a URL with a trailing / .

I'm thinking of writing a rewrite rule to map index.php/ to index.php . Is there any problem with this? Also, is there a way to generalise this to map anything.php/ to anything.php ?

Server is Apache 2.4.

Answer 1

Some people use trailing slashes to make clear that the url points to (for example) a folder.

When you want to point to a file, don't use a trailing slash.

Some Servers are faster when there is a trailing-slashes (when pointing to a folder). But that depends on the implementation.

Answer 2

Laokoon's answer is correct, but that's about having a trailing "/" (forward slash) at the end of the "path" part of the URL, like:

http://www.example.com/
http://www.example.com/folder/

What you have described in your question is having a trailing "/" in the "query" part of the URL.

Parts of the URL: "http://www.example.com/index.php?arg1=val1&arg2/"
http               Protocol
www.example.com    Subdomain.Domain
index.php          Path
?arg1=val1&arg2/   Query

In the case you describe: "http://www.example.com/index.php?arg1=val1&arg2/" , the trailing "/" does have a meaning, but perhaps not in the way that you might think.

You have tagged your question as php , so I will provide a PHP example. It may be handled differently in other languages such as "Perl" .

There are 2 possibilities for a trailing "/" in the "query" :

1) If the trailing "/" follows an "=" , without an "&" in between, then the trailing "/" is part of the "value" of the "key" associated with the "=" :

    "?arg1=val1/"            $_GET["arg1"] => 'val1/'
    "?arg1=/"                $_GET["arg1"] => '/'

2) If the "/" follows an "&" (or "?" ), without an "=" in between, then the "/" is part of the name of a "key" . Further, if the "/" is at the very end (trailing), then the "value" of that "key" will be empty:

    "?arg1/=val1"            $_GET["arg1/"] => 'val1'
    "?arg1=val1&arg2/=val2"  $_GET["arg2/"] => 'val2'
    "?arg1/"                 $_GET["arg1/"] => ''
    "?arg1=val1&arg2/"       $_GET["arg2/"] => ''

If the trailing "/" immediately follows an "&" (or "?" ), then the trailing "/" is the name of a "key" :

    "?/"                     $_GET["/"] => ''
    "?arg1=val1&/"           $_GET["/"] => ''

Here is a PhpFiddle example: querytest2016-0713.php

<?php

// http://main.xfiddle.com/55edba50/querytrailingslashtest/querytest2016-0713.php
echo "querytest2016-0713.php<br>\n";

echo 'HTTP_HOST ="'     . $_SERVER['HTTP_HOST']    . '"' . "<br>\n";
echo 'REQUEST_URI ="'   . $_SERVER['REQUEST_URI']  . '"' . "<br>\n";
echo 'QUERY_STRING ="'  . $_SERVER['QUERY_STRING'] . '"' . "<br>\n";
echo "<br>\n";
echo "Test using 'parse_url' and 'parse_str':<br>\n";

// $url = "http://www.example.com/index.php?arg1=val1&arg2/";
$url = 'http://' . $_SERVER['HTTP_HOST'] . $_SERVER['REQUEST_URI'];

$qry = parse_url($url, PHP_URL_QUERY);
parse_str($qry);
parse_str($qry, $arr);

echo "url='"   . $url . "'<br>\n";
echo "query='" . $qry . "'<br>\n";

foreach ($arr as $key => $value) {
    echo $key . " => '" . $value . "'<br>\n";
}

echo "<br>\n";
echo "Test using '\$_GET':<br>\n";

foreach($_GET as $key => $value){
  echo $key . " => '" . $value . "'<br />\r\n";
}

?>

Example output:
querytest2016-0713.php?arg1=val1&arg2/

querytest2016-0713.php
HTTP_HOST ="main.xfiddle.com"
REQUEST_URI ="/55edba50/querytrailingslashtest/querytest2016-0713.php?arg1=val1&arg2/"
QUERY_STRING ="arg1=val1&arg2/"

Test using 'parse_url' and 'parse_str':
url='http://main.xfiddle.com/55edba50/querytrailingslashtest/ ...
   ... querytest2016-0713.php?arg1=val1&arg2/'
query='arg1=val1&arg2/'
arg1 => 'val1'
arg2/ => ''

Test using '$_GET':
arg1 => 'val1'
arg2/ => ''

Example output:
querytest2016-0713.php?a=111&b=999&c=13579&arg1=901&arg2/=44&argx&whatever/=88&arg3/

querytest2016-0713.php
HTTP_HOST ="main.xfiddle.com"
REQUEST_URI ="/55edba50/querytrailingslashtest/querytest2016-0713.php?a=111&b=999&c=13579&arg1=901&arg2/=44&argx&whatever/=88&arg3/"
QUERY_STRING ="a=111&b=999&c=13579&arg1=901&arg2/=44&argx&whatever/=88&arg3/"

Test using 'parse_url' and 'parse_str':
url='http://main.xfiddle.com/55edba50/querytrailingslashtest/ ...
    ... querytest2016-0713.php?a=111&b=999&c=13579&arg1=901&arg2/=44&argx&whatever/=88&arg3/'
query='a=111&b=999&c=13579&arg1=901&arg2/=44&argx&whatever/=88&arg3/'
a => '111'
b => '999'
c => '13579'
arg1 => '901'
arg2/ => '44'
argx => ''
whatever/ => '88'
arg3/ => ''

Test using '$_GET':
a => '111'
b => '999'
c => '13579'
arg1 => '901'
arg2/ => '44'
argx => ''
whatever/ => '88'
arg3/ => ''

Of course, if the query string is "manually" parsed in PHP using some other coded method, then the trailing "/" may have some other meaning or purpose, or it may be totally ignored.