Relative URL to a different port number in a hyperlink?

Question

Is there a way without Javascript / server-side scripting to link to a different port number on the same box, if I don\'t know the hostname?

e.g.:

&l         


        

Answer 1

It would be nice if this could work, and I don't see why not because : is a reserved character for port separation inside the URI component, so the browser could realistically interpret this as a port relative to this URL, but unfortunately it doesn't and there's no way for it to do that.

You'll therefore need Javascript to do this;

// delegate event for performance, and save attaching a million events to each anchor
document.addEventListener('click', function(event) {
  var target = event.target;
  if (target.tagName.toLowerCase() == 'a')
  {
      var port = target.getAttribute('href').match(/^:(\d+)(.*)/);
      if (port)
      {
         target.href = window.location.origin;
         target.port = port[1];
      }
  }
}, false);

Tested in Firefox 4

Fiddle: http://jsfiddle.net/JtF39/79/

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Update: Bug fixed for appending port to end of url and also added support for relative and absolute urls to be appended to the end:

Test absolute
Test relative