In the XML world, the URI simply denotes a globally unique identifier. It need not be a web page or a service. Infact the processors( aka parsers ) will not attempt to resolve the URI references. Being able to parse a document from a computer that is not connected to the Internet stands as the best evidence for this behaviour. An example of an URI can be
http://www.abcdefgh.com/ijklmnop/qrstuvwzyz.rtf An URL on the other hand, is an URI that can be resolved by a standard web browser. The URL typically contains some data (html, htm,
jsp,
doc, txt etc ) that can be downloaded to the client machine using a standard application protocol like ftp or http.
Hope that clarifies. Again, my explanation is purely based on what I understand about URI/URL in the context of XML. There may be more to it in the grand scheme of things. I'd love to hear from the
gurus of the web-world.
------------------
Ajith Kallambella M. Sun Certified Programmer for the Java�2 Platform.
IBM Certified Developer - XML and Related Technologies, V1.