James McCarthy wrote: > We may both be correct but
The JDK does indeed produce such URLs, and Netscape accepts them (as well as the file:/// variety), but according to RFC 1738 (which seems to be the current URL reference): ************************************** 3.10 FILES The file URL scheme is used to designate files accessible on a particular host computer. This scheme, unlike most other URL schemes, does not designate a resource that is universally accessible over the Internet. A file URL takes the form: file://<host>/<path> where <host> is the fully qualified domain name of the system on which the <path> is accessible, and <path> is a hierarchical directory path of the form <directory>/<directory>/.../<name>. For example, a VMS file DISK$USER:[MY.NOTES]NOTE123456.TXT might become <URL:file://vms.host.edu/disk$user/my/notes/note12345.txt> As a special case, <host> can be the string "localhost" or the empty string; this is interpreted as `the machine from which the URL is being interpreted'. The file URL scheme is unusual in that it does not specify an Internet protocol or access method for such files; as such, its utility in network protocols between hosts is limited. ********************************************* So, I'm not sure where the single-slash syntax or its acceptance is coming from....