Hi Peter,

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This of course leads to the obvious question: which network gives me a stream over COM1?

network_ptr com1 = new net_over_stream( new stream_over_serial("com1"));

Wait a minute. Which network creates the stream_over_serial? Assume that I don't need the outer network since I'll be communicating with a printer, for example.

Serves me right for being glib. :) Here's what I meant: class stream_over_serial : public net::stream { public: stream_over_serial (string comport); }; This is a net::stream impl over the named COM device. On Windows, this might use lineOpen. Now that we have a stream, we wrap it in a network: class network_over_stream : public net::network { public: network_over_stream (net::stream_ptr strm); }; The caller of all this is whom so ever wanted a network running over the COM port. (glib again, I know<g> but this is just a sketch). FWIW: We use host names like "g" and "h" for "guest" and "host" where the "guest" is the initiator/active open and "host" is the acceptor/passive open. The new_local_address() would return "g" as a physical address on the side that did the above.

My point was that different network objects can interpret the same address to mean different things, at least in theory. URIs are supposed to be context-independent.

I see your point. Your suggestion of encoding the network as part of the URI would solve this. That could be a global map/table or a multi-net impl of net::network (one that was a net::network and wrapped a collection of network's; not that I want to go there<g>). But, these schemes would still compete with the set defined for the Internet (the http:// form should work since it is universal). The issue was that I wanted user visible addresses to be familiar (such as the now infamous "http://www.boost.org"). Given that desire, and the fact that our most heavily used network impl was TCP/IP, I had no problem with this level of abuse. ;) Also, the same protocol can run over multiple nets, so "foo://G" or "foo://10.0.0.7" just made some (twisted<g>) sense to me and I never worried about the ambiguity. Do you see this as an acceptable abuse, or as doing violence to the RFC? :) Best, Don __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com