http://3505021947 is an invalid URL

Glen Turner glen.turner at adelaide.edu.au
Thu Jun 10 16:15:11 UTC 1999


The definition of a URL only allows the dotted-quad form
of the IP address.

So it is perfectly valid for a browser or HTTP proxy to
reject the URL as invalid.

RFC1738 section 5 says:

  host           = hostname | hostnumber
  hostnumber     = digits "." digits "." digits "." digits

               -------------------------------

Most implementations hand <host> down to gethostbyname(),
if that fails they then try inet_addr().  inet_addr() allows
a lot of formats for the IP address.  This is actually
a really bad idea.  For example the strings:

  010.010.010.010

and

  10.10.10.10

are different addresses.  Some UNIXen are more restrictive
about the formats accepted by inet_addr() to solve the user
interface problems of the more generalised BSD implementation.
Compare DEC UNIX to Solaris.

Cheers,
glen

-- 
 Glen Turner                               Network Specialist
 Tel: (08) 8303 3936          Information Technology Services
 Fax: (08) 8303 4400         The University of Adelaide  5005
 Email: glen.turner at adelaide.edu.au           South Australia



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