JSR 199 sometimes refers to relative URIs and it must be specified
what is meant by a relative URI.

###@###.### writes:

Will there be a known scheme ("file" for example)? I ask because I
assume you don't want to reject an absolute URI like file:a/b assuming
the scheme matches.

To check for a relative path you'll invoke getPath() and see if it
starts with a "/". You'll want to think about the empty relative path
case of course. For the spec wording the only thinh I can suggest is to
reference URI#getPath and say that it checks if the path starts with a "/".

###@###.### writes:

Given that you won't have a scheme and authority and fragment are
meaningless I wonder if you would be easier to define the path as a
java.lang.String that is parsed as URI path (section 3.3 of
http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc3986.txt). It's just a suggestion but I'd be
happy to look over the javadoc when you have it fleshed out.