Correctly formatting URIs: slash

["Alejandro Colomar (man-pages)" <alx.manpages@gmail.com>]

Hi all,

Why do some pages use \:/ for the slash in the path part of a URL, but
some others don't, and just use /?

Moreover, why do the former use \:/ only for the path, but not for the
protocol?

$ grep -n '^\.UR' man7/uri.7;
173:.UR http://www.w3.org\:/CGI
243:.UR http://www.ietf.org\:/rfc\:/rfc1036.txt
383:.UR http://www.ietf.org\:/rfc\:/rfc2255.txt
396:.UR http://www.ietf.org\:/rfc\:/rfc2253.txt
414:.UR http://www.ietf.org\:/rfc\:/rfc2254.txt
456:.UR http://www.ietf.org\:/rfc\:/rfc1625.txt
555:.UR
http://www.fwi.uva.nl\:/\(times\:/jargon\:/h\:/HackerWritingStyle.html
583:.UR http://www.ietf.org\:/rfc\:/rfc2396.txt
586:.UR http://www.w3.org\:/TR\:/REC\-html40
707:.UR http://www.ietf.org\:/rfc\:/rfc2255.txt
$

$ grep -Inr '^\.UR' man? \
  |grep -c '\\:/';
56
$

$ grep -Inr '^\.UR' man? \
  |grep -c -v '\\:/';
41
$

$ grep -Inr '^\.UR' man? \
  |grep '\\:/' \
  |head -n1;
man2/futex.2:1910:.UR
http://kernel.org\:/doc\:/ols\:/2002\:/ols2002\-pages\-479\-495.pdf
$

$ grep -Inr '^\.UR' man? \
  |grep -v '\\:/' \
  |head -n1;
man1/memusage.1:206:.UR http://www.gnu.org/software/libc/bugs.html
$

What is the correct form?

Thanks,

Alex

-- 
Alejandro Colomar
Linux man-pages comaintainer; https://www.kernel.org/doc/man-pages/
http://www.alejandro-colomar.es/