[plt-scheme] Re: file: urls & their relation to path names

Although I may misunderstand, it would seem file://<some-path>
is formally invalid regardless of the encoding of <some-path>
in the absents of an explicitly specified authority; i.e.:

relative:

 robby/tmp.ss => file:robby/tmp.ss

absolute:

 /home/robby/tmp.ss => file:/home/robby/tmp.ss
                    => file:/c:/home/robby/tmp.ss            (?)
                    => file://localhost/home/robby/tmp.ss
                    => file://localhost/c:/home/robby/tmp.ss (?)

Given:

3.  Syntax Components

   The generic URI syntax consists of a hierarchical sequence of
   components referred to as the scheme, authority, path, query, and
   fragment.

      URI         = scheme ":" hier-part [ "?" query ] [ "#" fragment ]

      hier-part   = "//" authority path-abempty
                  / path-absolute
                  / path-rootless
                  / path-empty

   The scheme and path components are required, though the path may be
   empty (no characters).  When authority is present, the path must
   either be empty or begin with a slash ("/") character.  When
   authority is not present, the path cannot begin with two slash
   characters ("//").  These restrictions result in five different ABNF
   rules for a path (Section 3.3), only one of which will match any
   given URI reference.

   The following are two example URIs and their component parts:

         foo://example.com:8042/over/there?name=ferret#nose
         \_/   \______________/\_________/ \_________/ \__/
          |           |            |            |        |
       scheme     authority       path        query   fragment
          |   _____________________|__
         / \ /                        \
         urn:example:animal:ferret:nose

3.3.  Path

   The path component contains data, usually organized in hierarchical
   form, that, along with data in the non-hierarchical query component
   (Section 3.4), serves to identify a resource within the scope of the
   URI's scheme and naming authority (if any).  The path is terminated
   by the first question mark ("?") or number sign ("#") character, or
   by the end of the URI.

   If a URI contains an authority component, then the path component
   must either be empty or begin with a slash ("/") character.  If a URI
   does not contain an authority component, then the path cannot begin
   with two slash characters ("//").  In addition, a URI reference
   (Section 4.1) may be a relative-path reference, in which case the
   first path segment cannot contain a colon (":") character.  The ABNF
   requires five separate rules to disambiguate these cases, only one of
   which will match the path substring within a given URI reference.  We
   use the generic term "path component" to describe the URI substring
   matched by the parser to one of these rules.

      path          = path-abempty    ; begins with "/" or is empty
                    / path-absolute   ; begins with "/" but not "//"
                    / path-noscheme   ; begins with a non-colon segment
                    / path-rootless   ; begins with a segment
                    / path-empty      ; zero characters

      path-abempty  = *( "/" segment )
      path-absolute = "/" [ segment-nz *( "/" segment ) ]
      path-noscheme = segment-nz-nc *( "/" segment )
      path-rootless = segment-nz *( "/" segment )
      path-empty    = 0<pchar>
      segment       = *pchar
      segment-nz    = 1*pchar
      segment-nz-nc = 1*( unreserved / pct-encoded / sub-delims / "@" )
                    ; non-zero-length segment without any colon ":"

      pchar         = unreserved / pct-encoded / sub-delims / ":" / "@"

   A path consists of a sequence of path segments separated by a slash
   ("/") character.  A path is always defined for a URI, though the
   defined path may be empty (zero length).  Use of the slash character
   to indicate hierarchy is only required when a URI will be used as the
   context for relative references.  For example, the URI
   <mailto:fred at example.com> has a path of "fred at example.com", whereas
   the URI <foo://info.example.com?fred> has an empty path.

   The path segments "." and "..", also known as dot-segments, are
   defined for relative reference within the path name hierarchy.  They
   are intended for use at the beginning of a relative-path reference
   (Section 4.2) to indicate relative position within the hierarchical
   tree of names.  This is similar to their role within some operating
   systems' file directory structures to indicate the current directory
   and parent directory, respectively.  However, unlike in a file
   system, these dot-segments are only interpreted within the URI path
   hierarchy and are removed as part of the resolution process (Section
   5.2).

   Aside from dot-segments in hierarchical paths, a path segment is
   considered opaque by the generic syntax.  URI producing applications
   often use the reserved characters allowed in a segment to delimit
   scheme-specific or dereference-handler-specific subcomponents.  For
   example, the semicolon (";") and equals ("=") reserved characters are
   often used to delimit parameters and parameter values applicable to
   that segment.  The comma (",") reserved character is often used for
   similar purposes.  For example, one URI producer might use a segment
   such as "name;v=1.1" to indicate a reference to version 1.1 of
   "name", whereas another might use a segment such as "name,1.1" to
   indicate the same.  Parameter types may be defined by scheme-specific
   semantics, but in most cases the syntax of a parameter is specific to
   the implementation of the URI's dereferencing algorithm.