URI Templates
Gregorio, et. al: “URI Templates are strings that can be transformed into URIs after embedded variables are substituted. This document defines the structure and syntax of URI Templates.”
More at Mark Nottingham’s blog.
An example implementation (Java).
MapResolver resolver = new MapResolver();
resolver.put("scheme", "http");
resolver.put("host", "www.example.org");
resolver.put("user", "~jasnell");
resolver.put("format", "atom");
resolver.put("startIndex", "10");
resolver.put("count", "10");
String pattern = "{scheme}://{host}/{user}/index.{format}?startIndex={startIndex}&count={count}";
String result = URITemplate.expand(pattern, resolver);
System.out.println(result);
// http://www.example.org/~jasnell/index.atom?startIndex=10&count=10