Absolute vs relative URLs

Question

I would like to know the differences between these two types of URLs: relative URLs (for pictures, CSS files, JS files, etc.) and absolute URLs.

In addition, which o

Answer 1

For every system that support relative URI resolution, both relative and absolute URIs do serve the same goal: referencing. And they can be used interchangeably. So you could decide in each case differently. Technically, they provide the same referencing.

To be precise, with each relative URI there already is an absolute URI. And that's the base-URI that relative URI is resolved against. So a relative URI is actually a feature on top of absolute URIs.

And that's also why with relative URIs you can do more as with an absolute URI alone - this is especially important for static websites which otherwise couldn't be as flexible to maintain as compared to absolute URIs.

These positive effects of relative URI resolution can be exploited for dynamic web-application development as well. The inflexibility absolute URIs do introduce are also easier to cope up with, in a dynamic environment, so for some developers that are unsure about URI resolution and how to properly implement and manage it (not that it's always easy) do often opt into using absolute URIs in a dynamic part of a website as they can introduce other dynamic features (e.g. configuration variable containing the URI prefix) so to work around the inflexibility.

So what is the benefit then in using absolute URIs? Technically there ain't, but one I'd say: Relative URIs are more complex because they need to be resolved against the so called absolute base-URI. Even the resolution is strictly define since years, you might run over a client that has a mistake in URI resolution. As absolute URIs do not need any resolution, using absolute URIs have no risk to run into faulty client behaviour with relative URI resolution. So how high is that risk actually? Well, it's very rare. I only know about one Internet browser that had an issue with relative URI resolution. And that was not generally but only in a very (obscure) case.

Next to the HTTP client (browser) it's perhaps more complex for an author of hypertext documents or code as well. Here the absolute URI has the benefit that it is easier to test, as you can just enter it as-is into your browsers address bar. However, if it's not just your one-hour job, it's most often of more benefit to you to actually understand absolute and relative URI handling so that you can actually exploit the benefits of relative linking.