This has always confused me...

In a "clean URL" which only has words and slashes, when should there be a trailing slash?

Or asked another way, if you saw the follwoing URLs, would they each be valid and what would the say to you?

http://www.mysite.com

http://www.mysite.com/

http://www.mysite.com/products

http://www.mysite.com/products/

http://www.mysite.com/products/mens

http://www.mysite.com/products/mens/


I am working with Apache mod_rewrites and better understanding the above will help to make sure my rewrites yield the proper results!

Thanks.

EDIT: I'm as confused as the OP. Would be interesting to see what others have to say on this.

@Lysander666,

CTRL-T, CTRL-L <type stuff>

That's about all I ever do.

I agree, leave out the trailing slash. Yes it doesn't matter much, however the rare cases where it does make it not worth adding it in.

I type "usatoday.com[RET]" and it brings me to https://www.usatoday.com

CTRL-W

It really doesn't matter in my eyes because the web server in question will interpret the URL how it sees fit, even redirecting to a canonical URL (by adding a final slash or taking it away) if it feels like it.

For example, http://www.mysite.com/products/ may point at a directory on the web server, or a file, or some code, or whatever. It doesn't matter - the thing that matters is that the web server interprets it and you get web content in return.

Personally, my canonical URL form for my sites is to remove any trailing slash, but only for aesthetic reasons as I think it looks nicer that way.

Why are you guys having a side conversation in my thread?

I don't even understand what you were talking about with Ctl T and whatever?

Can we please get back to my OP and examples?

IMO the previous posts are on-topic and helpful...but if you want information about what happens on the server with and without a trailing / (and therefore how it might affect your mod rewrite), suggest you review the Apache documentation.
Also this search pulled up some useful information.

Better?

But this is a big deal, because it affects how I am writing my mod_rewrites and regex!

This is my understanding...

Whether the hostname ends with a slash isn't really important, so either of these will do...

http://www.myexample.com

http://www.myexample.com


If a URL has stuff after the hostname, then if things end with a slash, that implies the last part if a directory...

http://www.myexample.com/products/


And if a URL has stuff after the hostname, and things do not end with a slash that impies a file...

http://www.myexample.com/products/mens



I have a mod_rewrite that I am trying t better understand, and knowing the answer to the above will shape how I tweak that code.

(This whole Apache rewrite things yeilds nice looking end results but sure can be a PITA sometimes!!)

In post #2, Lysander666 says, "EDIT: I'm as confused as the OP. Would be interesting to see what others have to say on this."

Then in post #3, rtmistler says, "@Lysander666,

CTRL-T, CTRL-L <type stuff>

That's about all I ever do.

I agree, leave out the trailing slash. Yes it doesn't matter much, however the rare cases where it does make it not worth adding it in.

I type "usatoday.com[RET]" and it brings me to https://www.usatoday.com

CTRL-W"


What in the hell does all of that mean??

That isn't even a coherent conversation?!

Sounds like there are missing posts or some prior conversation that leaves me in the dark dealing with my OP?!

OP, calm down.

There have been some useful responses.

In short OP, leave out the trailing slash is the consensus.

I should have kept my original post in because it may have been helpful.

For instance, in the following examples

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fish

works whereas

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fish/

does not. This is because the Wikipedia server sees "Fish/" as a distinct file name.

From my experience, it also depends on application itself. Although, most of the apps where I've noticed a trailing / is needed are all IIS/ASP applications.
Since, this is for your server and application developed by developers at your org, may be test or ask the developers weather or not a trailing / is required, that should help narrow down your options?

Well you should test your code. Write small portions of it to test and validate what happens for each condition you're worried about.

While I may solicit opinions from fellow developers or an online forum, I can assure you that while I may agree or disagree with offered opinions, I will always test my code. More helpful might be the additional perspectives given to me by other persons or posters which would help me to more completely test my code.

So while we get it that this is important, it is important to you, and thus rather than just take anyone's word for it, you should follow up on references offered to validate the information. And since you're writing actual code, I'll repeat the primary recommendation, which is to test it.

Also as scasey says, you can research a lot of this in the documentation.

It essentially tells the web server that the url is of a DIRECTORY (on that server) and that it should load the default file IN that directory (often index.html, but other names could have been configured, like index.php). Some websites will not work without that trailing slash for a directory although other servers won't mind.
Of course an url which ends on a clear FILEname never should have a trailing slash.

1 members found this post helpful.

Perhaps due to the URL format's UNIX-origins the trailing slash used to imply a directory and the lack of it implied a file, but that is no longer the case. It can be either or neither these days, the URL often pointing at nothing in particular, just providing some server-side code with an indication about which resource it should serve up.

In the practical world, just decide on how you want your URLs to be canonically and stick to it for the sake of consistency. Browsers won't give a hoot anyway if there is a trailing slash or not.

As far as SEO is concerned: https://webmasters.googleblog.com/20...-to-slash.html

1 members found this post helpful.

I didn't ask what works. (Therefore tesing isn't the issue...)

I am asking what is the "right" way to do things. There is a difference.

And fwiw, I have been buried in the Apache manual for the last few days.

Of course, developers are horrible at documenting things, thus I have to ask here about things that the manual should tell me.

In the past, that has been my understanding too...