The names are the kind of servers that listen on those ports (by default) like ssh, telnet, http, and smtp. They are not subdomains or for URI parsing.
URI contains ":port" tho, but practically it is only digital number.
the OP made a tool which helps them to avoid using port numbers. people commented in a way that looked like laughing at him, like he reinvented the wheel, and talking about /etc/services. well ok, i decided to try using /etc/services for the purpose of using names instead of port numbers.
would it be possible to add "myapp 60001/tcp" to /etc/services and then work with "http://localhost:myapp"? NO! browsers do not translate these names into port numbers. netcat does. curl does not.
so probably the OP's solution is not that questionable and really solved their need? and "good old friend /etc/services" is not useful for this? i dont know what it is useful for as running services on non-standard ports actually helps with hiding from security/vuln scanners and is practiced widely.
Maybe the joke has gotten too far, but the point that most people have been trying to say is that the issue that the OP is trying to solve has been solved for years. It's called a reverse proxy. Doing the configuration automatically like OP does does not alter the fact that it is a reverse proxy. `/etc/services` serve a different purpose.
Also URL parsing is a completely different matter. Browsers are primarily an HTTP(s) client. If you do not mention the ":port", it will try to connect to 80 (HTTP) or HTTPS (443). Because that the default ports for a web server. Other services have different port. So if your URL has the ftp scheme, the default port would be 21.
the OP made a tool which helps them to avoid using port numbers. people commented in a way that looked like laughing at him, like he reinvented the wheel, and talking about /etc/services. well ok, i decided to try using /etc/services for the purpose of using names instead of port numbers.
would it be possible to add "myapp 60001/tcp" to /etc/services and then work with "http://localhost:myapp"? NO! browsers do not translate these names into port numbers. netcat does. curl does not.
so probably the OP's solution is not that questionable and really solved their need? and "good old friend /etc/services" is not useful for this? i dont know what it is useful for as running services on non-standard ports actually helps with hiding from security/vuln scanners and is practiced widely.