Nested uniform resource identifiers

Uniform resource identifiers (URIs) are very popular among non-technical people, to identify services and users in Internet, because they hide the underlying complexity of IP addresses and port numbers with a simple syntax. However, as currently defined, URIs is not extensible enough to support other name resolution mechanisms than the domain name system (DNS), nor newer transport protocols. This paper defines backward-compatible syntax for URIs that allows the location part of any URI to be defined with a URI itself. This nested URI syntax is more flexible, as it makes it possible for current applications to employ dynamic service discovery protocols, and to support multiple transport protocols.