# urlnorm

[](https://docs.rs/urlnorm)
[](https://crates.io/crates/urlnorm)
URL normalization library for Rust, mainly designed to normalize URLs for <https://progscrape.com>.
The normalization algorithm uses the following heuristics:
* The scheme of the URL is dropped, so that `http://example.com` and `https://example.com` are considered equivalent.
* The host is normalized by dropping common prefixes such as `www.` and `m.`.
* The path is normalized by removing duplicate slashes and empty path segments, so that `http://example.com//foo/` and `http://example.com/foo`
are considered equivalent.
* The query string parameters are sorted, and any analytics query parameters are removed (ie: `utm_XYZ` and the like).
* Fragments are dropped, with the exception of certain fragment patterns that are recognized as significant (`/#/` and `#!`)
## Usage
For long-term storage and clustering of URLs, it is recommended that [`UrlNormalizer::compute_normalization_string`] is used to
compute a representation of the URL that can be compared with standard string comparison operators.
```rust
# use url::Url;
# use urlnorm::UrlNormalizer;
let norm = UrlNormalizer::default();
let url = Url::parse("http://www.google.com").unwrap();
assert_eq!(norm.compute_normalization_string(&url), "google.com:");
```
For more advanced use cases, the [`Options`] class allows end-users to provide custom regular expressions for normalization.
## Examples
The normalization string gives an idea of what parts of the URL are considered significant:
```text
http://efekarakus.github.io/twitch-analytics/#/revenue
efekarakus.github.io:twitch-analytics:revenue:
http://fusion.net/story/121315/maybe-crickets-arent-the-food-of-the-future-after-all/?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=quartz
fusion.net:story:121315:maybe-crickets-arent-the-food-of-the-future-after-all:
http://www.capradio.org/news/npr/story?storyid=382276026
capradio.org:news:npr:story:storyid:382276026:
http://www.charlotteobserver.com/2015/02/23/5534630/charlotte-city-council-approves.html#.VOxrajTF91E
charlotteobserver.com:2015:02:23:5534630:charlotte-city-council-approves:
```