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Note: The following is an excerpt from the official IETF RFC. It is provided here as a convenience and is not authoritative. Refer to the original document as the authoritative reference.

A file URI identifies an object (a “file”) stored in a structured object naming and accessing environment on a host (a “file system”). The URI can be used in discussions about the file, and if other conditions are met, it can be dereferenced to directly access the file.

This document specifies a syntax based on the generic syntax of [RFC3986] that is compatible with most existing usages. Where incompatibilities arise, they are usually in parts of the scheme that were under-specified in earlier definitions and have been tightened up by more recent specifications. Appendix A lists significant changes to syntax.