Re: why prepend "file://" to abs paths in html output?

[Nicolas Goaziou <mail@nicolasgoaziou.fr>]

Hello,

Carsten Dominik <dominik@uva.nl> writes:

> I think it can be useful to write file: in the org-mode file, to make a
> clear distinction from internal links.  But once it is clear that something
> is a link to a file, I guess you are right  that it might not be needed in
> HTML.  We will see what breaks.....

Thinking about it, we should probably not remove the "file://" prefix.

I cannot think of any situation where [[/absolute/path/to/file]] would
match something like "<img src="/absolute/path/to/file"/>", because "/"
never matches web root directory.

IOW, to re-use the OP's example, [[/static/images/unicorn.jpg]] is never
a valid Org link, in the sense that it points to a non-existing file.
Since the OP is writing a link only valid during HTML export, he might
as well write raw HTML.

Note that that "file:///static/images/unicorn.jpg" is not useful either,
but at least it is logical.

The only situation where we might do something is during publishing,
when we know what web root directory – i.e., base directory – is. In
that case, we could replace absolute file names starting with web root
dir as root-relative URL.

WDYT?

Regards,

-- 
Nicolas Goaziou