Node Source URI

A node source URI identifies the source of node identity. It may include an ordered set of parameters after the URI:

<uri>;<parameter-name>=<parameter-value>;...

The first semicolon ends the URI and starts the parameter block. Equal signs before the first semicolon are part of the URI. A URI assigned programmatically must not contain a semicolon.

Each segment after the URI is a parameter. The first equal sign in the segment separates its name from its value. A segment without an equal sign has an empty value. A parameter with an empty name is ignored. When a name occurs more than once, its last value is used while its first position is retained.

Parameter names and values use UTF-8 percent-encoding according to RFC 3986. Only letters, digits, -, ., _, and ~ are left unescaped. A space is encoded as %20; a plus sign is encoded as %2B and never represents a space. Serializers use uppercase hexadecimal digits and always include the equal sign, including for an empty value.

Parsers preserve malformed percent escapes literally. For example, %ZZ decodes to %ZZ and is serialized again as %25ZZ. Escaped bytes that are not valid UTF-8 decode to the Unicode replacement character.

For example:

https://example/node;via_email=alice%40example.com;label=%D0%9C%D0%B8%D1%80%20%2B

has URI https://example/node, parameter via_email with value alice@example.com, and parameter label with value Мир +.

via_email is currently the only parameter name defined by Moera libraries. The NodeSourceUri utility preserves all other parameters without interpreting them.