Re: default documents

Darrin Chandler (dchandler@abilnet.com)
Sun, 21 Apr 1996 11:59:26 -0700


At 14:44 04/21/96 +0100, you wrote:
>How does a robot know what the default document
>(index.html/default.htm/home.html) is called?
>
>I mean, how does it know that, say, http://www.mydomain.com/test/ is
>the same as http://www.mydomain.com/test/index.html or
>http://www.mydomain.com/default.htm ?
>
>- Jakob
>

It doesn't know. I imagine that some robots make assumptions and equate
index.html or default.html with a resource ending in '/', but there's
nothing in the HTTP spec that guarantees it. The robots I write don't assume
this, nor do most of the other HTTP related tools I use. It may be
irritating to have different entries in your database for '/' and
'/index.html', but it's safer. A given server may have several file names
which it uses as default. For instance, given two files '/index.cgi' and
'/index.html', the server may give you the .cgi when you ask for '/', and
assuming .html would be incorrect even though that resource exists and is
published.