I've [committed to an initial design][1] for URLs to be used as Pathnames, which I am in the process of implementing. The primary use of this functionality will be to be able to eventually express OSGi bundles within ASDF system definitions. [1]: http://trac.common-lisp.net/armedbear/browser/trunk/abcl/doc/design/url-path... The gist of the proposal is to represent a URL with a Pathname whose HOST component is a list. The list will be an association list with the key :SCHEME containing the URL scheme and :AUTHORITY containing the URL authority. The DIRECTORY, NAME, and TYPE components will be used to construct the PATH of the URL. As an example, "http://example.org:8080/org/armedbear/lisp/boot.lisp" would be converted to a Pathname as follows pathname: { host: (:SCHEME "http" :AUTHORITY "example.org:8080"), directory: (:ABSOLUTE "org" "armedbear" "lisp"), name: "boot", type: "lisp" } As an answer to Alessio's question (long ago) about whether URLs should really be a Pathname or if we are better off using a class, I think that they really are better abstracted as a Pathname because they a) have a hierarchical path b) the network location has a strong resemblance to how HOST is used for UNC mounts under Windows and c) being able to express OSGi bundles in ASDF has a chance of working. Critique welcome. -- "A screaming comes across the sky. It has happened before, but there is nothing to compare to it now."