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Comment by 4oo4 | Hacker News Reader

This mostly makes sense except the 3rd and 5th `http://`, unless those are supposed to be grouped together?

    http:// (scheme)
    http:// (user)
    http:// ??
    @http:// (hostname)
    http:// ??
    ?http:// (parameter)
    #http:// (fragment)

Will buy a beer for the first person that demonstrates how to serve that URL.

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Well first let's parse it.

  Welcome to Node.js v17.7.2.
  Type ".help" for more information.
  > u=new URL("http://http://http://@http://http://?http://#http://")                     
  URL {
    href: 'http://http//http://@http://http://?http://#http://',
    origin: 'http://http',
    protocol: 'http:',
    username: '',
    password: '',
    host: 'http',
    hostname: 'http',
    port: '',
    pathname: '//http://@http://http://',
    search: '?http://',
    searchParams: URLSearchParams { 'http://' => '' },
    hash: '#http://'
  }

Browsers give the same result, with uglier formatting.

As for serving a request:

  ~/a $ python3 -m http.server 80 &                                                          
  [1] 31173
  ~/a $ Serving HTTP on :: port 80 (http://[::]:80/) ...
  ~/a $ curl --resolve http:80:127.0.0.1 "http://http://http://@http://http://?http://#http://"
  ::ffff:127.0.0.1 - - [07/Sep/2022 02:15:53] code 404, message File not found            
  ::ffff:127.0.0.1 - - [07/Sep/2022 02:15:53] "GET //http://@http://http://?http:// HTTP/1.1" 404 -
  <!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01//EN"                                               "http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/strict.dtd">                                        
  <html>
    <!-- snip -->
  </html>
  ~/a $

All you have to do is start a new country called Http, convince ICANN to adopt it as a new TLD (will need a lot of persuasion) and serve “http” as a dotless domain. But, you know, anything for a beer… (fyi: the host name is the part after @ and before the port number indicated by “:”)

Is it

    http:// (scheme)
    http: (user)
    //http:// (password)

at the start?

Yes, the username is "http" the password is "//http://"

The : separates the username and password (it's not part of either).

The url-path is "/http://?http://#http://" which can be further broken down into /abs_path, ?query and #fragment.

Edit: Also further correction to gp is that the hostname is "http" not "@http://".

The @ is the separator between username:password@hostname the : separates the port, which is omitted, and defaults to 80 for a http URI scheme and the first / separates the host:port portion from the path (which, in this case, happens to start with a /)

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