About the http request standard

GET http://stackoverflow.com/questions HTTP/1.1
Host: stackoverflow.com

Does the HTTP standard require that GET requests are fed with an absolute or relative address? What about when the requ开发者_StackOverflow中文版est is in a proxy?

I ask this because I feel it's duplicate with the Host info.

---

GET / HTTP/1.1

Is a valid request line. The full path is not necessary.

5.1.2 Request-URI

The Request-URI is a Uniform Resource Identifier (section 3.2) and identifies the resource upon which to apply the request.

   Request-URI    = "*" | absoluteURI | abs_path | authority

The four options for Request-URI are dependent on the nature of the request. The asterisk "*" means that the request does not apply to a particular resource, but to the server itself, and is only allowed when the method used does not necessarily apply to a resource. One example would be

   OPTIONS * HTTP/1.1

The absoluteURI form is REQUIRED when the request is being made to a proxy. The proxy is requested to forward the request or service it from a valid cache, and return the response. Note that the proxy MAY forward the request on to another proxy or directly to the server specified by the absoluteURI. In order to avoid request loops, a proxy MUST be able to recognize all of its server names, including any aliases, local variations, and the numeric IP address. An example Request-Line would be:

   GET http://www.w3.org/pub/WWW/TheProject.html HTTP/1.1

To allow for transition to absoluteURIs in all requests in future versions of HTTP, all HTTP/1.1 servers MUST accept the absoluteURI form in requests, even though HTTP/1.1 clients will only generate them in requests to proxies.

---

You can consult the HTTP RFC for this.

3.2.1 General Syntax

URIs in HTTP can be represented in absolute form or relative to some known base URI [11], depending upon the context of their use.

---

Host details are not required. Relative path is sufficient