Matrix URIs - Ideas about Web Architecture

Matrix URIs - Ideas about Web Architecture

Matrix URIs

Matrix spaces and Semicolons

It is maybe obvious to note that there are many, many hierarchical systems. An interesting analogy with a hierarchical power is, in a programming language, a sequence of parameters supplied to a command or a procedure. For example, in some languages a procedure may take positional parameters which may be optional so that any parameters from a certain point on may be omitted. This syntax can be compared with a hierarchical slash separated URL path. This is an interesting analogy because looking at the alternative representation for procedure parameters which consists of a list of procedure name and value pairs. This leads us naturally to a discussion of the use of the semi-colon in URLs and the matrix syntax. Just as the slash separated set of elements is useful for representing a tree, so a set of names and equally significant parameter can represent a space more like a (possible sparse) matrix. In this case navigation to "close" locations is done by varying one or more parameters which form the dimensions of the matrix. This is the purpose of the a=b; parts of URL syntax which was added later in the URL's history. The initial need was to put qualifiers onto URLs which were themselves hierarchical.

The analogy with procedure call holds still when looking at combined forms: The hierarchical part of the URL is paused first, and then the semi-colon separated qualifiers are paused as indicating positions in some matrix. As an example let's imagine the URL of an automatically generated map in which the parameters for latitude, longitude and scale are given separately. Each may be named, and each if omitted may take a default. So, for example,

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