What does dollar sign $ do in url?

Question

I have been reading that $ ! ; . , are 'reserved' chars in url. But I can not find what are they reserved for.

/ path delimiter  
: port
? query  
& glue get params  
= param=val  
\# link anchor  
+ space

.

My specific questions:
Does anyone know what are $ ! ; . , used for?
Does : have any special meaning in request uri?

I feel this question is too broad and is not specific to a programming question. It may be better suited for [programmers.se] or [webmasters.se] — Kermit, Nov 18 '13 at 14:32

score 37 · Accepted Answer · edited Oct 07 '21 at 05:46

37

RFC 2396 is obsolete.

For modern versions of the spec, see:

RFC3987 (in relation to IRI's); and
RFC3986 (in relation to URI's).

About /

Yes, that is used as a delimiter in the path part.

About :

Ye, it is used as a prefix for port, but it has other roles such as the user info separator, and a delimiter for IP styles of host specifiers.

About =

Suprisingly, the = character is not part of the general URL, URI nor IRI syntax. It has a special meaning only the the http(s) protocols. This is not intrinsic to URL/IRI/URI

About +

The role of + as a substitute for space is NOT part of the URL/URI/IRI syntax. It is merely a convenient invention of some PHP programs for pretty URL purposes.

About $ and ;

These have no special meaning in the URL/URI/IRI syntax. They can be part of the sub-delimiters production, which can be used in the user info part, future-IP part, path segment or a host part.

edited Oct 07 '21 at 05:46

Community

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answered Nov 18 '13 at 14:42

Sean B. Durkin

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Really cool answer. If you can, add something about $ ; . , and : in request uri. – CoR Nov 18 '13 at 15:00
How is `=` not part of the general URL syntax? `google.com/search?q=test` – Kermit Nov 18 '13 at 15:06
@FreshPrinceOfSO: Check the spec for yourself. – Sean B. Durkin Nov 18 '13 at 15:17
@FreshPrinceOfSO This encoding originates from [HTML’s `application/x-www-form-urlencoded` encoding](http://www.w3.org/TR/html401/interact/forms.html#h-17.13.4.1). – Gumbo Nov 18 '13 at 18:30
Indeed. In some implementations, x-www-form-urlencoded interprets ';' as equivalent to '&' - see http://stackoverflow.com/a/7287629/263879 – Royce Williams Jul 04 '16 at 05:36
since RFC3986 `=` is part of the sub-delimiters and so is `+` – John Smith Feb 14 '19 at 12:40

score 4 · Answer 2 · answered Nov 18 '13 at 14:29

Your question is a bit broad, but the RFC 2396 should contain all your answers.

Many URI include components consisting of or delimited by, certain special characters. These characters are called "reserved", since their usage within the URI component is limited to their reserved purpose. If the data for a URI component would conflict with the reserved purpose, then the conflicting data must be escaped before forming the URI.
 reserved    = ";" | "/" | "?" | ":" | "@" | "&" | "=" | "+" |
                "$" | ","
The "reserved" syntax class above refers to those characters that are allowed within a URI, but which may not be allowed within a particular component of the generic URI syntax; they are used as delimiters of the components described in Section 3.

Characters in the "reserved" set are not reserved in all contexts. The set of characters actually reserved within any given URI component is defined by that component. In general, a character is reserved if the semantics of the URI changes if the character is replaced with its escaped US-ASCII encoding.

They can be used for an application specific function. Just because they're "reserved" doesn't mean they can't be used. — Kermit, Nov 18 '13 at 14:36
Following that logic `:` also have free/application specific function, right? If used in request uri of course :) — CoR, Nov 18 '13 at 14:38
[RFC 3986](http://www.faqs.org/rfcs/rfc3986.html) explains that `$ ; ,` may be used as sub delimiters in a URL identifier. — Kermit, Nov 18 '13 at 14:38