Angular relative paths in HTTP requests

Question

How do relative URLs work in Angular's HTTP requests? Example, I see people doing this:

$http.post('/api/authenticate', { username: username, password: password });

There is no address here, just a relative URL, how can javascript, running in a users browser, figure out which address to call? If possible please add links to material I can read to better understand this.

Answer 1

The base URL for this HTTP AJAX request will be the domain address in the URL address bar in the browser.

For example:

Your application is running on https://example.com/user/profile and when you execute:

$http.post('/api/authenticate', { username: username, password: password });

Then the browser will make an AJAX request to https://example.com/api/authenticate

You can get the base URL from browser using

var baseURL = window.location.protocol + '//' + window.location.host;
alert('Base URL for current frame is: ' + baseURL);