URL parser
Parse URLs and extract components (protocol, host, path, etc.)
URL Parser
Parse and inspect all components of a URL
TL;DR
What is URL parser?
A URL (Uniform Resource Locator) is composed of distinct components defined in RFC 3986: scheme (https), authority (user:password@host:port), path (/search), query (?q=foo), and fragment (#section). Parsing splits a URL into these parts for inspection or manipulation.
Common use cases
- ‣API debugging: extract individual query parameters from a long URL without manually reading percent-encoded strings
- ‣Redirect validation: confirm that a redirect target has the correct scheme, host, and path
- ‣URL construction: verify that programmatically built URLs have the structure you expect
- ‣Security review: inspect the host and path of a URL from an untrusted source before following it
Frequently asked questions
What is the difference between a path and a query string?
The path is the hierarchical portion of the URL after the host (/api/v1/users). The query string starts after the ? and contains key-value pairs (?id=42&format=json). Paths typically identify a resource; query strings provide additional parameters to filter or modify the response.
What is a URL fragment?
The fragment is the portion after # in a URL (e.g. #section-2). It is processed entirely by the browser and is never sent to the server. It is used to scroll to an element on a page or to pass state in single-page applications via hash routing.
See also
- ‣URL encoder: encode individual query parameter values after extracting them from a parsed URL
- ‣HTTP status codes: look up the meaning of a response status code when debugging requests to a URL you have just parsed