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http://url.spec.whatwg.org/#urls [[ A URL's fragment is either null or a string holding data that can be used for further processing on the resource the remainder of the URL identifies. ]] This definition is a bit cyclic. You have to know that the fragment and "the remainder of the URL" are referring to the same thing. I think deleting the last part would make it less confusing: ------8<----- A URL's fragment is either null or a string holding data that can be used for further processing on the resource. ------>8------ For an example of where the fragment identifier isn't just an id, you can see SVG where it's a small language of itself, letting you clip and scale the image.
Remainder of the URL is actually meant to refer to the part that is not the fragment. As that bit identifies a resource, not the fragment.
Maybe I should just drop "the remainder of", although it's a tad less specific.
https://github.com/whatwg/url/commit/a14cafdeae68479c0b92712e9733f4626825226a