MicroNugget: What's the Difference Between URI, URL, and URN?

In this video, Tim Warner covers the difference between uniform resource identifiers (URI), uniform resource locators (URL), and uniform resource names (URN). He’ll discuss how they all relate, how they interact with each other, and what you need to know about each as an IT professional.

URIs serve as the most generic way to reference a network-based resource. It does not give the specific protocol you’d use to find a resource and doesn’t give the exact directory path. It’s a generic identifier. The implementation of a URI can take the form of a URN or a URL. It’s important to remember that all URLs are URIs, but not all URIs are URLs — you can also replace “URL” with “URN” and the same statement is true in this parent-child relationship. The example of a personal name is useful. Your name is like a URI: it isn’t specific enough to be able to find you globally. For that to happen, you’d need to add other unique identifying information such as a social security number, and that would create a URN that would allow you to be located.

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[ClaudioLichtenthal]

EXCELLENT!!! Finally someone took all the complexity mumbo-jumbo and explained it correctly!!!

[fredflintstone]

THANK YOU! After reviewing many youtube videos claiming to explain the difference this is the first one I've found that actually does the job.

[juliancordoba]

I love MicroNuggets short and to the point.

[latifaltay]

You hit the nail on the head man.
What a relief.
Thanks a lot.

[cbtnuggets]

You're welcome! Feel free to suggest a topic by going to the link within the description.

[anonydm]

So very clear - excellent method of teaching - Thank you!!!

[matoskok]

super example, many thanx. Now I understand the differences very clearly...

[Pdannshbdndhabahw]

Simply perfect explanation. Thanks a lot! 🙇‍♀

[aldosansan]

Wow, thank you alot for the excellent explanation! I completely got this now triade!
Thanks for simplifying something that was causing me a headache to understand !

[theghost]

Very Informative. Thank you very much!

[bidhayakmajumdar]

to the point explanation ... thanks a lot Tim.

[med]

thank you so much Man what a great explanation !

[ronanderson]

Awesome and concise thank you a lot <3

[MrLupontheth]

My only confusion comes in when you choose to use ISBN's as opposed to IP addresses. On the "book side" the URI and URN look exactly the same so that caused me some confusion as well. But I liked the video because I get it now so thank you.

[ntbohl]

the URI/URN thing is still throwing me because of their similarity. I wish you would have used another example for your graph, like the name example you used later in the video.

uri - name
urn - name&social
url - address

something to that effect, if I'm understanding properly.

[ironmanlifts]

Thanks, I understand now. I guess ill find out later but I don't know why they would need a urn or uri, why not just use URLS instead. Maybe it has something to do with web programing where I would be looking for something without knowing and address then query a URN... ? IDK ? Guess Ill find out later, back to programing :D .