Uniform Resource Characteristics

Uniform Resource Characteristics

In computer science, a uniform resource characteristic (URC) is a string of characters representing the metadata of a URI (uniform resource identifier, a string identifying a Web resource). A URC binds a URI's associated URN (uniform resource name, a unique name for a Web resource) to its URL (uniform resource locator, the location at which a Web resource can be found). URCs were proposed as a specification in the mid-1990s, but were never adopted.

The use of a URC would allow the location of a Web resource to be obtained from its standard name, via the use of a resolving service. It was also to be possible to obtain a URC from a URN by the use of a resolving service. The design goals of URCs were that they should be simple to use, easy to extend, and compatible with a wide range of technological systems. The URC syntax was intended to be easily understood by both humans and software.