GS1 Digital Link Standard URI Syntax R I1-2 2021-01-164aae931
GS1 Digital Link Standard URI Syntax R I1-2 2021-01-164aae931
Document Summary
Document Item Current Value
Document Issue
Contributors
Name Company
Name Company
Name Company
Name Company
Name Company
Ed Collins Brandbank
Name Company
Name Company
Log of Changes
Release Date of Change Changed By Summary of Change
1.0 Aug 2019 Mark Harrison, Phil Archer, Initial release developed on WR 17-000343. Originally
Dominique Guinard, Marie published under the title GS1 Web URI Structure
Petre & Greg Rowe Standard
1.1 Feb 2020 Mark Harrison, Phil Archer Updates based upon WR 18-231 which can be found
Greg Rowe in section 10
1.2 Jan 2021 Mark Harrison, Phil Archer, Updates based upon WR 20-127 which can be found
Dominique Guinard, Steven in section 8
Keddie & Greg Rowe
Disclaimer
GS1®, under its IP Policy, seeks to avoid uncertainty regarding intellectual property claims by requiring the participants in
the Work Group that developed this GS1 Digital Link Standard: URI Syntax to agree to grant to GS1 members a
royalty-free licence or a RAND licence to Necessary Claims, as that term is defined in the GS1 IP Policy. Furthermore,
attention is drawn to the possibility that an implementation of one or more features of this Specification may be the
subject of a patent or other intellectual property right that does not involve a Necessary Claim. Any such patent or other
intellectual property right is not subject to the licencing obligations of GS1. Moreover, the agreement to grant licences
provided under the GS1 IP Policy does not include IP rights and any claims of third parties who were not participants in
the Work Group.
Accordingly, GS1 recommends that any organisation developing an implementation designed to be in conformance with
this Specification should determine whether there are any patents that may encompass a specific implementation that the
organisation is developing in compliance with the Specification and whether a licence under a patent or other intellectual
property right is needed. Such a determination of a need for licencing should be made in view of the details of the specific
system designed by the organisation in consultation with their own patent counsel.
THIS DOCUMENT IS PROVIDED “AS IS” WITH NO WARRANTIES WHATSOEVER, INCLUDING ANY WARRANTY OF
MERCHANTABILITY, NONINFRINGEMENT, FITNESS FOR PARTICULAR PURPOSE, OR ANY WARRANTY OTHER WISE
ARISING OUT OF THIS SPECIFICATION. GS1 disclaims all liability for any damages arising from use or misuse of this
document, whether special, indirect, consequential, or compensatory damages, and including liability for infringement of
any intellectual property rights, relating to use of information in or reliance upon this document.
GS1 retains the right to make changes to this document at any time, without notice. GS1 makes no warranty for the use
of this document and assumes no responsibility for any errors which may appear in the document, nor does it make a
commitment to update the information contained herein.
GS1 and the GS1 logo are registered trademarks of GS1 AISBL.
Table of Contents
1 Introduction .............................................................................................. 11
1.1 How the GS1 Digital Link standard documents fit together .................................................. 11
1.2 Typographical conventions used in this document .............................................................. 12
7 Glossary .................................................................................................... 37
9 References ................................................................................................ 40
1 Introduction
This section and its subsections are informative
GS1 defines a wide range of identifiers that underpin the supply chain and retail industry across the
world. This document assumes the reader is familiar with these and the concept of GS1 Application
Identifiers. If not, please see information on [GS1 Identification Keys] and the [GENSPECS] for further
background.
This work has been motivated by a number of trends. For example: the desire among retailers to
move to 2D barcodes that can carry more information than just the GTIN; the problems of multiple
barcodes causing scanning errors through conflicts which suggests a need for a single but
multipurpose barcode; the growing expectation among consumers that more information is
available online about the products they’re considering buying; the brand owner concept of the
pack as a media channel linking to multimedia experiences, and more.
As a result of this standard, it is possible to represent GS1 identification keys consistently within
Web addresses as well as within barcodes containing Web addresses, such that a single
identification approach can support both product identification for supply chain applications and a
link to online material for consumer and business partner interactions. It’s this dual functionality
and enormous flexibility that is currently not possible when, for example, Brand Owners embed an
unstructured Web page address in a QR Code®1.
The scope of the work accommodates all Class 1 and Class 2 GS1 Keys and Key qualifiers (e.g.,
serial number, batch number, consumer product variant) and other relevant attributes as the same
technologies are equally applicable to SSCCs, GLNs, GIAIs, GRAIs, GSRNs etc. While the syntax
can support Class 2 Keys, it is up to the Class 2 Issuing Agencies to determine whether it’s fit for
their use. For Class 3 GS1 Keys, GS1 welcomes bilateral discussions with Issuing Agencies to see
where alignment is possible.
This GS1 standard references a number of third-party standards from the Internet Engineering
Task Force (IETF) and the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C).
1.1 How the GS1 Digital Link standard documents fit together
Rather than one very long document containing every detail, as of version 1.2, the GS1 Digital Link
standard comprises 4 discrete documents:
URI syntax (this document)
This document provides some of the background to the design of GS1 Digital Link, highlighting
existing techniques and practices that underpin the World Wide Web, and applying those to the
GS1 system. The normative portions set out the detailed syntax of Web addresses (HTTP URIs)
that encode GS1 identifiers with exactly the same precision and expressivity as the AI-based
element syntax used across the GS1 system, notably in the GS1 General Specifications. The GS1
Digital Link URI syntax distinguishes between primary keys, such as GTIN and GLN, key qualifiers,
such as batch/lot and GLN extension, and attributes such as expiry date and ship-to address. The
GS1 Digital Link URI syntax is the foundation on which all other aspects of the standard are built.
Compression
A GS1 Digital Link URI that contains a set of identifiers and attributes may exceed the capacity of
some data carriers. This document defines a compression/decompression algorithm that minimises
the length of those Web URIs while retaining two critical features: 1) that the compressed form is
still a URL on the same domain as the uncompressed form, that is, there is no change in ownership
of the URL; 2) that it can be decompressed and the GS1 keys extracted without an online lookup.
Resolution
A GS1 Digital Link URI is a particular form of URL and can be used in exactly the same way as any
other URL (this is an important design feature). However, it can also be the gateway to multiple
sources of information, both human and machine-readable. This document defines how the keys in
1 Unless otherwise specified, the term ‘QR Code®’ refers to the widely used ISO/IEC 18004 QR Code®, excluding the GS1 QR Code that
recognises the FNC1 character. ‘QR Code’ is a registered trademark of Denso Wave, a subsidiary of Denso Corporation. Both the ISO/IEC
18004 QR Code® and GS1 QR Code follow the encoding scheme described in ISO/IEC 18004 Information technology — Automatic
identification and data capture techniques — QR Code bar code symbology specification, 3rd edition 2015-02-01.
a GS1 Digital Link URI can be ‘resolved’ to those information sources in such a way that
information systems and apps can discover them automatically. Resolvers are what makes the
standard operational for the GS1 community and the industries served.
Semantics
Devices like scanners and point of sale terminals, PIM systems, product catalogues and more that
are designed specifically to work with GS1 identifiers and data carriers, are all programmed to
function within that particular framework. GS1 Digital Link puts things like GTINs, SSCCs and
GRAIs onto the Web alongside countless other identifiers and ways of working. This document
expresses the meaning behind the GS1 Digital Link standard in a way that the Web at large can
understand and process. It makes use of, and extends, the GS1 Web Vocabulary.
NOTE: This standard discusses complete URIs encoded in data carriers such as QR codes,
Data Matrix codes and NFC tags. The potential use of software to construct those URIs from
components discovered through scans of, for example, UPC/EAN barcodes or GS1 DataMatrix
symbols, is out of scope.
3 What is a URI?
This section is informative
This section provides some clarification about what a Uniform Resource Identifier (URI) is, how
URIs relate to Uniform Resource Names (URNs) and Uniform Resource Locators (URLs), as well as
providing an explanation of the main structural elements within a Web URI.
assertion between two URIs to formally express that they both refer to the same thing, even if the
URIs are different strings.
Figure 3-2 A Web URI can act both as a globally unambiguous name for something, as well as providing an
easy way to retrieve Web resources (e.g. information) relating to the identified thing
Figure 3-3 provides a brief overview of the internal structural elements of a Web URI:
Convenience alphas will be removed from future versions of the standard and hence are
flagged as DEPRECATED here.
The following characters must be represented using percent-encoding (see section 2.1 of RFC 3986
[PercentEncoding]) when used as literal characters within URIs, since many of these have special
meanings within Web URIs:
Octothorpe = "%23" ; percent-encoding of the # character
ForwardSlash = "%2F" ; percent-encoding of the / character
The following group of symbol characters is permitted within the 82-character subset of ISO/IEC
646, indicated in Figure 7.11-1 of the GS1 General Specifications [GENSPECS].
XSYMBOL = DoubleQuote / "-" / "." / "_" / Exclamation / Percent /
Ampersand / Plus / Comma / ForwardSlash / Asterisk /
LeftBracket / RightBracket / Apostrophe / Semicolon /
Colon / LeftAngleBracket / RightAngleBracket / Equals /
QuestionMark
The following group of symbol characters is permitted within the 39-character subset of ISO/IEC
646, indicated in Figure 7.11-2 of the GS1 General Specifications [GENSPECS].
YSYMBOL = "-" / Octothorpe / ForwardSlash
The following character set corresponds to all permitted characters within the 82-character subset
of ISO/IEC 646, indicated in Figure 7.11-1 of the GS1 General Specifications [GENSPECS].
The following character set corresponds to all permitted characters within the 39-character subset
of ISO/IEC 646, indicated in Figure 7.11-2 of the GS1 General Specifications [GENSPECS]. It is
currently only used within the value of the Components and Parts Identifier (CPID).
YCHAR = DIGIT / UPPERALPHA / YSYMBOL
Note: the GS1 General Specifications [GENSPECS] define further restrictions on some of
these values, particularly for those which include a GS1 Check Digit, Indicator Digit or
Extension Digit. Please refer to the GS1 General Specifications [GENSPECS] for further details.
/01/9520123456788/22/2A/10/ABC123/21/12345XYZ
/01/9520123456788/10/ABC123/
/01/9520123456788/10/ABC123/21/12345XYZ
/01/9520123456788/21/12345XYZ
but does not permit strings such as:
/01/9520123456788/21/12345XYZ/10/ABC123
in which the sequential ordering of the key qualifier components is not preserved.
gtin-path = gtin-comp [cpv-comp] [lot-comp] [ser-comp]
itip-path = itip-comp [cpv-comp] [lot-comp] [ser-comp]
gmn-path = gmn-comp
cpid-path = cpid-comp [cpsn-comp]
gln-path = gln-comp [glnx-comp]
partyGln-path = partyGln-comp
gsrnp-path = gsrnp-comp [srin-comp]
gsrn-path = gsrn-comp [srin-comp]
gcn-path = gcn-comp
sscc-path = sscc-comp
gdti-path = gdti-comp
ginc-path = ginc-comp
gsin-path = gsin-comp
grai-path = grai-comp
giai-path = giai-comp
upui-path = gtin-comp tpx-comp
eoid-path = partyGln-comp uic-ext-comp
fid-path = gln-comp uic-ext-comp
mid-path = giai-comp uic-ext-comp
The following rule simply states that any of the above is considered as a gs1path (which will be
referenced in a later rule).
gs1path = gtin-path / itip-path / gmn-path / cpid-path / gln-path /
partyGln-path / gsrnp-path / gsrn-path / gcn-path / sscc-path
/ gdti-path / ginc-path / gsin-path / grai-path / giai-path /
upui-path / eoid-path / fid-path / mid-path
amountValue = 1*15DIGIT
percentOffValue = 4DIGIT
certificationRefValue = 2*30XCHAR
rules also define a lower-case short name, exp and expdt that may be used in place of numeric AIs
“17” and “7003” respectively.
expiryDateCode = "17" / %s"exp"
expiryDateValue = 6DIGIT
expiryDateParameter = expiryDateCode "=" expiryDateValue
shipToCompParameter / shipToNameParameter /
shipToaAdd1Parameter / shipToaAdd2Parameter /
shipToSubParameter / shipToLocalityParameter /
shipToRegParameter / shipToCountryParameter /
shipToPhoneParameter / rtnToCompParameter /
rtnToNameParameter / rtnToAdd1Parameter /
rtnToAdd2Parameter / rtnToSubParameter /
rtnToLocParameter / rtnToRegParameter /
rtnToCountryParameter / rtnToPostParameter /
rtnToPhoneParameter / srvDescriptionParameter /
dangerousGoodsParameter / authToLeaveParameter /
sigRequiredParameter / notBeforeDelDateParameter /
notAfterDelDateParameter / releaseDateParameter /
segment = *pchar
h16 = 1*4HEXDIG
; 16 bits of address represented in hexadecimal
port = *DIGIT
Finally, the following four rules define the syntax of a reference GS1 Digital Link URI from the
concatenation of previously defined components:
queryStringDelim = "&" / ";"
queryStringComp =
"?" queryStringParam *( queryStringDelim queryStringParam)
5.1 GTIN
https://id.gs1.org/01/09520123456788
is the canonical Digital Link URI for GTIN 9520123456788 equivalent to the following element
string:
(01)09520123456788
The following are further valid GS1 non canonical Digital Link URIs for GTIN 9520123456788 using
a custom domain name e.g. example.com instead of id.gs1.org
https://brand.example.com/01/9520123456788
https://brand.example.com/some-extra/pathinfo/01/9520123456788
If redirection information has been specified to GS1 by the corresponding licensee of that GTIN or
the GS1 Company Prefix (for GTINs constructed from GS1 Company Prefixes), a GS1 Resolver that
supports GS1 Digital Link URIs will be able to effectively redirect any requests for that GS1 Digital
Link URI to a corresponding URL specified by the licensee.
Is the canonical GS1 Digital Link URIs for GTIN 9520123456788 combined with Consumer Product
Variant '2A' and to the following element string:
(01)09520123456788(22)2A
The following are further valid non canonical GS1 Digital Link URIs for GTIN 9520123456788
combined with Consumer Product Variant '2A'.
https://brand.example.com/01/9520123456788/22/2A
https://retailer.example.com/01/9520123456788/22/2A
is the canonical GS1 Digital Link URIs for GTIN 9520123456788 combined with Batch/Lot
'ABC123'and equivalent to the following element string:
(01)09520123456788(10)ABC123
The following are further non canonical valid GS1 Digital Link URIs for GTIN 9520123456788
combined with Batch/Lot 'ABC123'
https://brand.example.com/01/9520123456788/10/ABC123
https://retailer.example.com/01/9520123456788/10/ABC123
The following are further valid GS1 Digital Link URIs for GTIN 9520123456788 combined with
Serial Number '12345'
https://brand.example.com/01/9520123456788/21/12345
https://retailer.example.com/01/9520123456788/21/12345
The following is also a valid non canonical GS1 Digital Link URIs for GTIN 9520123456788
combined with Batch/Lot ‘ABC1’ and Serial Number '12345' and with an expiry date of 26th April
2018.
https://example.com/01/9520123456788/10/ABC1/21/12345?17=180426
https://example.com/01/9520123456788?3103=000195
5.8 SSCC
https://id.gs1.org/00/952012345678912345
is the canonical GS1 Digital Link URI for SSCC 952012345678912345 equivalent to the following
element string:
(00)952012345678912345
The following is a further valid non canonical GS1 Digital Link URIs for SSCC 952012345678912345
:
https://example.com/00/952012345678912345
is the canonical GS1 Digital Link URIs for SSCC 952012345678912345 containing a count [ AI (37) ]
of 25 instances of Content [ AI (02) ] 09520123456788 having Batch/Lot identifier [ AI (10) ]
'ABC123' equivalent to the following element strings:
(00)952012345678912345(02)09520123456788(37)25(10)ABC123
The following is a further non canonical valid GS1 Digital Link URI for SSCC 106141412345678908
containing a count [ AI (37) ] of 25 instances of Content [ AI (02) ] 09520123456788 having
Batch/Lot identifier [ AI (10) ] 'ABC123':
https://example.com/00/952012345678912345?02=09520123456788&37=25&10=ABC123
is the canonical GS1 Digital Link URI for GLN 9520123456788 equivalent to the following element
string:
(414)9520123456788
https://id.gs1.org/414/9520123456788/254/32a%2Fb
Is the canonical GS1 Digital Link URIs for GLN 9520123456788 combined with a GLN extension
'32a/b'. Note that because the forward slash character has a special meaning within Web URIs,
it is replaced with %2F, its percent encoding, when it is being used as a literal value, rather than as
a URI path separator.
It is equivalent to the following element strings:
(414)9520123456788(254)32a/b
The following is also a valid but non canonical GS1 Digital Link URIs for GLN 9520123456788 :
https://example.com/414/9520123456788
The following is a further valid non canonical GS1 Digital Link URIs for GLN 9520123456788
combined with a GLN extension '32a/b' :
https://example.com/gln/9520123456788/254/32a%2Fb
Both of these GS1 Digital Link URIs express the same combination of GS1 Application Identifiers.
However, they are not equivalent. For the first example, in which the GIAI appears in the URI path
information, the issuer of that GIAI asset identifier is the authority, whereas for the second
example in which the GTIN is in the URI path information, the licensee of the GTIN (typically the
brand owner or manufacturer) is the authority for that GS1 Digital Link URI.
Although both identify an item with GIAI 9520614141234567 that is an instance of GTIN
9520123456788, the choice of which identifier to place in the URI path information does matter for
resolvers that have a policy of only permitting referral records specified by the respective licensee
of the GS1 identification key appearing in the URI path information. It also makes a difference from
a semantic perspective. The first example expresses that "this thing is an asset identified by this
GIAI – and it is/was also a product identified by this GTIN." The second example expresses that
this is a product and that it also carries this asset identifier. The second example is unlikely to be
encoded by the manufacturer or brand owner in a data carrier except when an instance of a
product is manufactured for a specific known customer/asset owner. Most mass-produced products
are made to stock rather than made to order/bespoke. This is an example where there are two
primary identifiers in a single GS1 Digital Link URI. The equivalent element string is
(01)09520123456788(8004)9520614141234567
Although there are no specific rules about which of the ‘two primary keys’ should go in the path
and which in the query string, the order is likely to be determined by the context. In this example,
the GIAI will be assigned by the owner of the item who purchased it from the manufacturer who
assigned the GTIN. In this scenario, it is the owner who would create the GS1 Digital Link URI and
therefore it is very likely to be the GIAI that goes in the path – the owner’s primary – rather than
the manufacturer. The presence of multiple primary keys has an effect on the semantics that can
be inferred from the URI. See GS1 Digital Link Standard: Semantics for more on this topic [DL-
Semantics].
6 AIDC Issues
This section is normative
The use of GS1 Digital Link URIs in data carriers is governed by the GS1 General Specifications
[GENSPECS]. That document defines the full GS1 system from the semantics of individual
Application Identifiers and their permitted values, through to data carrier positioning and human-
readable information and much more besides.
The following subsections supplement the General Specifications as they pertain specifically to GS1
Digital Link.
7 Glossary
The glossary lists the terms and definitions that are applied in this document. Please refer to the
www.gs1.org/glossary for the online version.
Term Definition
Attribute An element string that provides additional information about an entity identified with a
GS1 identification key, such as batch number associated with a Global Trade Item
Number (GTIN).
Brand Owner The organisation that owns the specifications of a trade item, regardless of where and by
whom it is manufactured. The brand owner is normally responsible for the management
of the Global Trade Item Number (GTIN).
Canonical GS1 Digital Link The definitive GS1 Digital Link URI for a given resource. See section Canonical GS1
URI Digital Link URIs
Consumer Often considered as the "recipient" of the supply chain in the past, today’s consumer is
an active part of the supply chain and expects more data, with higher accuracy, and
greater ease.
Consumer Product Variant An alphanumeric attribute of a GTIN assigned to a retail consumer trade item variant for
(CPV) its lifetime.
Data Field A field that contains a GS1 identification key, an RCN, or attribute information
Data titles Data titles are the abbreviated descriptions of element strings which are used to support
manual interpretation of barcodes.
Dereferencing a URI The use of an appropriate access mechanism (e.g. Web request) to perform an action on
the URI's resource (e.g. to retrieve an information representation via HTTP GET or to
send data to a resource via an HTTP POST operation). Dereferencing a URI is often
considered synonymous with making a Web request or 'looking up' a URI on the Web.
Domain name A domain name is an identification string that defines a realm of administrative
autonomy, authority or control within the Internet. Domain names are formed by the
rules and procedures of the Domain Name System (DNS). Any name registered in the
DNS is a domain name. Domain names are used in various networking contexts and
application-specific naming and addressing purposes.
Domain names provide an abstraction layer that separates a registered name for an
organisation or activity from the actual internet addresses (IP addresses) that provide its
associated information services such as its Website, its e-mail server etc. The system
that connects the domain names with the corresponding IP addresses is the Domain
Name System (DNS).
Term Definition
Element string The combination of a GS1 Application Identifier and GS1 Application Identifier data field.
GS1 Application identifier The field of two or more digits at the beginning of an element string that uniquely
defines its format and meaning.
GS1 Application identifier The data used in a business application defined by one GS1 Application Identifier.
data field
GS1 Barcode A data carrier which encodes GS1 Application Identifier element strings.
GS1 Barcode using GS1 All GS1 endorsed barcode symbologies that can encode more than a GTIN namely GS1-
Application Identifiers 128, GS1 DataMatrix, GS1 DataBar and Composite and GS1 QR Code.
GS1 Identification key A unique identifier for a class of objects (e.g. a trade item) or an instance of an object
(e.g. a logistic unit).
GS1 key qualifier A key qualifier is an additional attribute that is designated for use as part of a compound
key (e.g., GTIN + serial number is a compound key, with the serial number being a key
qualifier for the GTIN)
GS1 Digital Link URI A Web URI conforming to the GS1 Digital Link URI syntax.
key=value pair The query string of a URL – the portion after the ? symbol - may contain one or more
keys, also known as parameters, and their values. For example, an expiry date (17) can
be given a value of 221225 as 17=221225. Multiple key=vale pairs can be included in
the query string, separated by the & character.
LGTIN (GTIN + Lot/Batch) A compound key formed from the combination of GTIN [ AI (01) ] and Batch/Lot
identifier [ AI (10) ]. LGTIN is defined as an EPC Class URN in the current GS1 Tag Data
Standard (v1.11), sections 6.4.1 and 7.14, which describes the mapping between the
EPC Class URN format for LGTIN and the corresponding element string.
Parsing The process of analysing the structure of a sentence or URI structure in order to extract
relevant information from it. Note that within the context of EPC URN structures, parsing
refers to the ability to extract structural components within the EPC structure, e.g. for
the purpose of matching against EPC URN patterns.
Reference GS1 Digital Link A GS1 Digital Link URI that uses the id.gs1.org domain
URI
Resolver The term ‘resolver’ is not unique to GS1. It is the name for any service that accepts an
identifier as input and passes the request about the identified item to information about
it. In the GS1 context, a resolver connects a GS1-identified item to one or more online
resources that are directly related to it. The item may be identified at any level of
granularity, and the resources may be either human or machine readable. Examples
include product information pages, instruction manuals, patient leaflets and clinical data,
product data, service APIs, marketing experiences and more. GS1 resolvers are defined
in [DL-Resolution]
Retailer An organisation engaged in the sale and distribution of products to consumers. Also
includes online retailers/e-tailers
SGTIN (Serialised GTIN) A compound key formed from the combination of a GTIN [AI (01) ] with Serial Number [
AI (21) ] which provides globally unique identification for every instance of a product.
The term SGTIN appears in section 6.3.1 and 7.1 of the current GS1 Tag Data Standard,
v1.11
Term Definition
URI Uniform Resource Identifier. A string of characters used to identify a resource. The
resource may be an information resource such as a Web page or a thing in the real
world, such as a physical object, person or location. URIs refer to the superset of
Uniform Resource Names (URNs), Uniform Resource Locators (URLs) and Web URIs
(which can function both as globally unambiguous names, while also behaving like URLs
by enabling intuitive retrieval of related information via the Web).
URI fragment identifier The fragment identifier component of a URI allows indirect identification of a secondary
resource by reference to a primary resource and additional identifying information. The
identified secondary resource may be some portion or subset of the primary resource,
some view on representations of the primary resource, or some other resource defined
or described by those representations. A fragment identifier component is indicated by
the presence of an octothorpe/hash/number sign ("#") character and terminated by the
end of the URI.
A typical use of a URI fragment identifier is to provide a direct link to a specific section
within a very long Web document such as
https://www.w3.org/TR/dwbp/#DataIdentifiers
URI path information A path consists of a sequence of path segments separated by a slash ("/") character.
A path is always defined for a URI, though the defined path may be empty (zero length).
The path component contains data, usually organized in hierarchical form, that, along
with data in the non-hierarchical query component, serves to identify a resource within
the scope of the URI's scheme and naming authority (if any). The path is terminated by
the first question mark ("?") or number sign ("#") character, or by the end of the URI.
URI query string The query component contains non-hierarchical data that, along with data in the path
component, serves to identify a resource within the scope of the URI's scheme and
naming authority (if any). The query component is indicated by the first question mark
("?") character and terminated by a number sign ("#") character or by the end of the
URI.
URL Uniform Resource Locator (URL), a specific type of URI colloquially known as Web
address.
A URL is a URI starting with http or https .
Updated introduction.
Example GS1 identifiers changed to use the 952 prefix.
AIDC Considerations section added, including regular expressions for determining strings that
definitely are not, or plausibly are, GS1 Digital Link URIs.
9 References
[DL1]
GS1 Digital link version 1.0 Originally titled GS1 Web URI Structure. Mark Harrison, Phil Archer, Dominique
Guinard et al. GS1 Ratified Standard, August 2018 https://www.gs1.org/standards/Digital-Link/1-0
[DL 1.1]
GS1 Digital Link version 1.1 Mark Harrison, Phil Archer, Dominique Guinard et al. GS1 Ratified Standard,
February 2020 https://www.gs1.org/docs/Digital-Link/GS1_Digital_link_Standard_i1.1.pdf
[DL-Compression]
GS1 Digital Link: Compression and decompression. Mark Harrison, GS1 ratified standard, see
https://www.gs1.org/standards/gs1-digital-link
[DL-Resolution]
GS1 Digital Link: Resolution. Phil Archer, Mark Harrison, Dominique Guinard et al. GS1 ratified standard, see
https://www.gs1.org/standards/gs1-digital-link
[DL-Semantics]
GS1 Digital Link: Semantics, Mark Harrison, Phil Archer et al.GS1 ratified standard, see
https://www.gs1.org/standards/gs1-digital-link
[GENSPECS]
GS1 General Specifications V20.0. GS1 Ratified Standard January 2020
https://www.gs1.org/sites/default/files/docs/barcodes/GS1_General_Specifications.pdf
[GS1 Identification Keys]
https://www.gs1.org/standards/id-keys
[GS1Voc]
The GS1 Web vocabulary https://www.gs1.org/voc/
[IRIs]
Internationalized Resource Identifiers (IRIs) M Duerst, M. Suignard. IETF January 2005
https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc3987
[Linked Data]
Tim Berners-Lee 2006 https://www.w3.org/DesignIssues/LinkedData
[LMS]
GS1 Lightweight Messaging Standard for Verification of Product Identifiers, Release 1.1. GS1 ratified standard
July 2019
https://www.gs1.org/sites/default/files/docs/standards/gs1_lightweight_verification_messaging_standard_v1-
1.pdf
[PercentEncoding]
Uniform Resource Identifier (URI): Generic Syntax, section 2.1: Percent-Encoding T Berners-Lee, R Fielding, L
Masinter. IETF January 2005 https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc3986#section-2.1
[REST]
See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Representational_state_transfer
[RFC 2606]
Reserved Top Level Domain Names D Eastlake, A Panitz. IETF June 1999 https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc2606
[RFC 3986]
Uniform Resource Identifier (URI): Generic Syntax. T Berners-Lee, R Fielding, L Masinter. IETF January 2005
https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc3986
[RFC 5234]
Augmented BNF for Syntax Specifications: ABNF. D Crocker (ed), P Overell. IETF January 2008
https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc5234
[RFC 6570]
URI Template. J. Gregorio, R. Fielding, M. Hadley, M. Nottingham, D. Orchard. IETF March 2012
https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc6570
[RFC 6596]
The Canonical Link Relation. M Ohye, J Kupke. IETF April 2012 https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc6596
[RFC 6761]
Special-Use Domain Names. S Cheshire, M Krochmal. IETF February 2013 https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc6761
[RFC 7405]
Case-Sensitive String Support in ABNF. P. Kyzivat. IETF December 2014 https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc7405
[RFC 8615]
Well-Known Uniform Resource Identifiers (URIs). M Nottingham. IETF May 2019
https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc8615