'/' at the end of URL

open nickroh.vercel.app and copy the url from your browser

the result will be

https://nickroh.vercel.app/

not

https://nickroh.vercel.app

Why there is '/' at the end of the URL? It is questionable since both https://nickroh.vercel.app/ and https://nickroh.vercel.app is working.

Trailing Slash

The '/' at the end of URL is called Trailing Slash. Its role is to identify the URL is directory. So if there is trailing slash it is directory if not it is file.

https://nickroh.vercel.app/dir/ # directory

https://nickroh.vercel.app/a.html # file

What if '/' is not used for directory and used for file

The answer is it does not matter for directory and matters for file.

• Case '/' is missing if '/' is missing in directory url the server treat it as path to file at first. The server searches for the file and if the file doesn't exist the server treat it as a directory

• Case '/' exists if '/' the server consider it as path to directory, if it it directory eveything is fine but is it was file it will cause error such as 404 not found

How about the domain URL

Actually our browser automatically add trailing slash if it is missed in domain URL

This is specification of URL

scheme:[//[user[:password]@]host[:port]][/path][?query][#fragment]

As we can see not putting trailing slash after domain URL is not identifying path.

Therefore not putting '/' at the end of domain is not identifying the resouce is file or dir. It didn't specified the path to the resource. Therefore out broswer automatically changes

https://nickroh.vercel.app # to

https://nickroh.vercel.app/ # this