Uniform Resource Identifier

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What Does Uniform Resource Identifier Mean?

A uniform resource identifier (URI) is a strings of characters used to identify names or resources on the Internet. The URI describes the mechanism used to access resources, the computers on which resources are housed and the names of the resources on each computer.

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Techopedia Explains Uniform Resource Identifier

URIs can be classified as uniform resource locators (URLs) or uniform resource names (URNs) or both. The URL specifies the method used to obtain a representation either through the description of the primary access mechanism or through the network location. The URN identifies a resource by name in a particular namespace.

URI identification enables interaction with the resource representation over networks using specific protocols. For instance, the URI: http://www.w3.org/Icons/WWW/w3c_main.gif identifies an image file (.gif) accessed via Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) on a computer housed at the www.w3.org domain.

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Margaret Rouse
Technology Expert
Margaret Rouse
Technology Expert

Margaret is an award-winning technical writer and teacher known for her ability to explain complex technical subjects to a non-technical business audience. Over the past twenty years, her IT definitions have been published by Que in an encyclopedia of technology terms and cited in articles by the New York Times, Time Magazine, USA Today, ZDNet, PC Magazine, and Discovery Magazine. She joined Techopedia in 2011. Margaret's idea of a fun day is helping IT and business professionals learn to speak each other’s highly specialized languages.