Help:URL

URLs in external links
A link in external link style can be of the forms:
 * target: http://meta.wikimedia.org/ is rendered as http://meta.wikimedia.org/
 * [ target label ], with a blank space in between: wikimedia gives wikimedia (see also Help:Piped link)
 * [ target ] - these are automatically labelled with serial numbers 1, 2, 3, ...: gives

The target is a URL which can start with " http:// " or " ftp:// "; "file://" does not work (by default; and if enabled, it only works in MSIE).

All characters of the URL must be among: A-Z a-z 0-9 ._\/~%-+&amp;#?!=@

If a URL contains a different character it should be converted; for example, ^ has to be written %5e, the hexadecimal ASCII value with a percent sign in front. A blank space can also be converted into an underscore.

Conversion:

"  #   $   %   &amp;   '   *  ,   :   ;   <   >   ?   [   ^   `   {   |   } %22 %23 %24 %25 %26 %27 %2a %2c %3a %3b %3c %3e %3f %5b %5e %60 %7b %7c %7d

For the other characters either the code or the character can be used in internal and external links, they are equivalent. The system does a conversion when needed. E.g.

%C3%80_propos_de_M%C3%A9ta

is rendered as %C3%80_propos_de_M%C3%A9ta, almost like À propos de Méta, which leads to this page on Meta with in the address bar the URL

http://meta.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%80_propos_de_M%C3%A9ta

while http://meta.wikipedia.org/wiki/À_propos_de_Méta leads to the same.

See also (in Wikipedia): Internationalized domain names and Punycode.

URLs of pages within the projects
See w:Wikipedia:URLs. On other projects everything works the same, except that the domain names vary:


 * xx.wikipedia.org with xx the language code, see Complete list of language Wikipedias available
 * meta.wikimedia.org (meta.wikipedia.org redirects there)
 * xx.wiktionary.org
 * xx.wikiquote.org
 * xx.wikibooks.org
 * wikisource.org
 * he.wikisource.org
 * sep11.wikipedia.org

A URL starting with www.wikipedia.org redirects to the corresponding one starting with en; only www.wikipedia.org itself leads to a portal page instead of the main page of the English Wikipedia: http://www.wikipedia.org

In projects outside Wikimedia the "w/" in URLs like http://www.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=Main_Page&action=history is sometimes not used, sometimes different, e.g.:
 * http://www.disinfopedia.org/wiki.phtml?title=Disinfopedia_Main_Page&action=history
 * http://wikitravel.org/en/index.php?title=Main_Page&action=history

The default is /wiki/wiki.phtml, with in DefaultSetting.php :

$wgScriptPath = "/wiki"; $wgScript    = "{$wgScriptPath}/wiki.phtml";

There may be other variations, compare:
 * http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vancouver
 * http://wikitravel.org/en/Vancouver

Use in templates
For use in templates, note that all URLs on e.g. the English Wikipedia can be written in the form

http:// en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=

This requires to be written with underscores and escape codes (if applicable). To benefit from the conversion carried out by localurl, two parameters are needed:

http:// en.wikipedia.org

This works for a link in external link style to a page in the same project or a project which uses the same string in the URL between the server name and the question mark ($wgScript, on Wikimedia "/w/index.php"), but not for links to other projects.

Old versions of pages
All old versions of all pages are numbered (with oldid) approximately in the order of becoming an old version, i.e. in chronological order of the next edit of the same page.


 * http://meta.wikimedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=Help:Link&oldid=53587 - normal link to old page
 * http://meta.wikimedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?oldid=53587 - no page name in the URL, goes to the correct page
 * http://meta.wikimedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=Help:Link&oldid=53588 - number and name do not correspond; the name is ignored
 * http://meta.wikimedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=abc&oldid=53587 - non-existing page name; oldid is ignored, works like going to a non-existing page, except for the links to assumed previous and next versions, and on editing, for the warning of editing an old version of a page.

See also Linking to specific versions of articles.

New pages
New pages are numbered (with curid) chronologically.


 * http://meta.wikimedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=x&curid=9906 - gives the page with correct full name

See also Multiple titles.

Edit
Examples:


 * Edit the whole page: http://meta.wikimedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=Help:URL&action=edit
 * Edit the 5th section: http://meta.wikimedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=Help:URL&action=edit&section=5
 * Add at the end: http://meta.wikimedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=Help:URL&action=edit&section=1000 (use large section number)
 * Ditto with "Post a comment" feature: http://meta.wikimedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=Help:URL&action=edit&section=new

Purge
In some cases of caching problems, to update a page it can help to use "action=purge", in a URL like

Kinds of dead links
There can be various kinds of errors in the URL. With some the server is not even reached, with others the server takes some action. The server may also go to the correct page and just ignore a wrong parameter or anchor.


 * http://meta.wikimedia.or/
 * abc
 * http://met.mediawiki.org
 * /abc
 * http://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Help:URL&action=abc
 * http://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Help:URL&act=abc
 * http://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Help:URL#abc
 * http://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Help:URL#abc