Why do we need both # and / in vocab IRIs?

Question

I am trying to do some job with json-ld, and I met 2 kind of vocab IRIs:

• http://example.com/vocab
• http://example.com/vocab#

Why is this? Does it have anything to do about how to process the documents?

Answer 1

The vocabulary in your first example is likely (but not necessarily) using 303 URIs, the one in the second example is using hash URIs.

Both are common vocabulary URI design principles, and solutions for the httpRange-14 issue.

See also the section Choosing between 303 and Hash.