> Requesting a directory is a valid request. The server should provide a > default document from that directory.
You need the final / to request a directory. If you look at the HTML generated for a typical directory listing, you will find that the URLs are relative and don't include the directory name; the base URL needs to have the final /. Also, if you do have an index document in the directory (default is a Microsoft concept, see below), and that was why you were getting a redirect, the redirect would most sensibly be to that document, not to the directory. Strictly speaking, though, components in a URL don't reference directories; that just happens to be the logical interpretation when mapping them onto static pages in a file system. With creative CGI, at least with non-MS servers, you can compose URLs that look like file URLs, but are actually purely dynamic content; unfortunately the trend is the opposite - to push static resources through a CGI handler that uses serial numbers as form type parameters. Microsoft's use of default.htm, reflects, in part, an assumption that one is dealing with a file system, and also reflects that commercial web sites don't view URLs ending in / as requests for an index of available information, but rather as just an ordinary page, and don't like the idea that they augment a default index. ; To UNSUBSCRIBE: Send "unsubscribe lynx-dev" to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
