I seem to remember that the topic of an URL class was, once upon a time, discussed by the group, but I can't find any notes nor mails about it. From what I remember, the consensus was that several languages do have a native URL/URI class (e.g. Java), and that then the language bindings should allow to use these classes instead or additionally to strings. However, Ole and Hartmut argued that the C++ bindings should have an URL class, too, as the task of generating and parsing teh URLs would be left as a tedious excercise to the end user. Now, if we are going to specify URL classes for basically all bindings, then we may as well consider to use a simple URL class in the spec. OTOH, that might be overkill, and the bindings may be just the right place to deal with that topic. As I am blessed with a very poor memory, I really can't remember if that was discussed already, or if I for example was opposed to an URL class myself :-P Anyway, I'd like to raise the question (again), and would love to hear your opinions. Thanks, Andre. PS.: _if_ we would include an URL class in the spec, I'd insist on keeping it as simple and small as possible. No need for fancyness here - setters and getters for the URL elements is all what we basically need, right? -- "XML is like violence: if it does not help, use more."