What does ".." mean in url?

Question

I was doing some tests on my server and I found that adding . or .. at the end of the URL seems to change things, but I don't know why.

It's not limited to my server, though. I can access www.google.fr.. via Firefox or wget (didn't try an other mean, but I guess it's the same).

So, do you guys know what do these extra . mean?

http://www.dns-sd.org/TrailingDotsInDomainNames.html – Arno Mittelbach Jul 05 '13 at 13:10 — Arno Mittelbach, Jul 05 '13 at 13:10
See also: http://stackoverflow.com/q/13309854/1591669 – unor Jul 07 '13 at 18:09 — unor, Jul 07 '13 at 18:09

Pranav Singh · Accepted Answer · 2013-07-05T13:31:11.983

1

There are two type of URL possible.

"." & ".." are used in relative paths.

"." means Current Directory or Current Path Segment

".." means one directory up relative to current Directory/Current Path Segment

edited Jul 05 '13 at 13:31

answered Jul 05 '13 at 13:13

Pranav Singh

Concerning your terminology, "directory" seems inappropriate in this context: A URL does not necessarily map to a hierarchical file system. A more appropriate term might be "path segment"; see e.g. [RFC 1808](http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc1808.txt). – stakx - no longer contributing Jul 05 '13 at 13:25
@stakx ,I agree, updated answer above. But RFC 1808 doesn't states that too. :) – Pranav Singh Jul 05 '13 at 13:32
`.` and `..` can also occur in absolute URLs, e.g., `http://www.foo.com/bla/blub` is the same as `http://www.foo.com/bla/../bla/./blub` – tobias_k Jul 05 '13 at 13:36

1 Answers1