Links in HTML

looking at how HTML exactly works from a RESTful perspective requires to look at all the different links that HTML defines. these are actually quite a bit more than just <A> links, and based on the HTML 4.01 transitional DTD, here is the complete list of all linking elements that can be used in HTML. one interesting observation is that some of these links are not supported in today's browsers, such as the cite attribute on <Q> and <BLOCKQUOTE> (you could of course always retrofit this by adding scripting packages that turn those links into actionable UI elements in the browser).

Element	Attribute	Method	Response Resource	Semantics
BODY	background	GET	image/*	texture tile for document background
A	href	GET	*/*	URI for linked resource
AREA	href	GET	*/*	URI for linked resource
LINK	href	GET	*/* (based on rel and/or type, more specific types may be expected)	URI for linked resource
IMG	src	GET	image/*	URI of image to embed
	longdesc	GET	*/*	link to long description (complements alt)
	usemap	GET	text/html (fragment must be MAP element)	use client-side image map (often local fragment identifier)
OBJECT	classid	GET (relative to codebase)	application/*	identifies an implementation
	codebase	-	-	base URI for classid, data, archive
	archive	GET (multiple URIs, relative to codebase)	*/*	space-separated list of URIs
	data	GET (relative to codebase)	*/*	reference to object's data
	usemap	GET	text/html (fragment must be MAP element)	use client-side image map (often local fragment identifier)
APPLET	codebase	-	-	base URI for classid, data, archive
	archive	GET (relative to codebase)	*/*	comma-separated archive list
	code	GET (relative to codebase)	*/*	applet class file
	object	GET (relative to codebase)	*/*	serialized applet file
Q, BLOCKQUOTE	cite	GET	*/*	URI for source document or msg
INS, DEL	cite	GET	*/*	info on reason for change
FORM	action	GET/POST (depending on method)	POST Request: application/x-www-form-urlencoded or multipart/form-data (depending on enctype) Response: */*	server-side form handler
INPUT	src	GET	image/*	for fields with images
	usemap	GET	text/html (fragment must be MAP element)	use client-side image map (often local fragment identifier)
FRAME, IFRAME	longdesc	GET	*/*	link to long description (complements title)
	src	GET	*/*	source of frame content
HEAD	profile	GET (often treated as a name only)	*/*	named dictionary of meta info
BASE	href	-	-	URI that acts as base URI
SCRIPT	src	GET	application/*	URI for an external script
	for	-	-	reserved for possible future use