Do web browsers always send a trailing slash after a domain name?

Question

Is there consistency and/or a standard on how browsers send a url to a host related to trailing slashes?

Meaning, if I type in http://example.com in the

Answer 1

As RFC 2616 tells:

3.2.2 http URL

The "http" scheme is used to locate network resources via the HTTP
protocol. This section defines the scheme-specific syntax and
semantics for http URLs.

http_URL = "http:" "//" host [ ":" port ] [ abs_path [ "?" query ]]

If the port is empty or not given, port 80 is assumed. The semantics
are that the identified resource is located at the server listening for TCP connections on that port of that host, and the Request-URI for the resource is abs_path (section 5.1.2). The use of IP addresses in URLs SHOULD be avoided whenever possible (see RFC 1900 [24]). If the abs_path is not present in the URL, it MUST be given as "/" when used as a Request-URI for a resource (section 5.1.2). If a proxy receives a host name which is not a fully qualified domain name, it MAY add its domain to the host name it received. If a proxy receives a fully qualified domain name, the proxy MUST NOT change the host name.

Read more: http://www.faqs.org/rfcs/rfc2616.html#ixzz0kGbpjYWa

5.1.2 Request-URI
...
For example, a client wishing to retrieve the resource above directly from the origin server would create a TCP connection to port 80 of the host "www.w3.org" and send the lines:

   GET /pub/WWW/TheProject.html HTTP/1.1
   Host: www.w3.org

followed by the remainder of the Request. Note that the absolute path cannot be empty; if none is present in the original URI, it MUST be given as "/" (the server root).

Read more: http://www.faqs.org/rfcs/rfc2616.html#ixzz0kGcaRbqU