javadoc currently uses String to model relative URIs, typically building them by concatenating strings intended to represent path, query and fragment. But, the code is inconsistent about the way such strings are manipulated, breaking the implied invariants.

In addition, this has led to excessive overloading and extra parameters to pas around the component parts of the reference.

Although it would be possible to use URI, that is more flexible than is desirable, and does not have the ability to customize it to use other internal javadoc types.

It would be better to provide a custom simple abstraction to manage triples of (path, query, fragment).