Hashing URIs

Clients of URIs often need to specify some sort of client parameter that is returned as part of the HTTP response. This parameter is intended to preserve the application state by encoding it into the URI.

A common practice is instead of passing the client state as a GET HTTP parameter, to provide the client state as a hashed URI segment. This segment would represent the client state. It is a preferable URI practice because the application state is still encoded as part of the resource URI but doesn't need to be sent to the server.

One aspect of this practice to be weary of is mistaking application state for resources. If the intent is to use the application state as the hashed URI segment, only use it for application states and not data resources.