Question: I tried to find this in the relevant RFC, [IETF RFC 3986](https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc3986), but couldn't figure it.

Do URIs for HTTP allow Unicode, or non-ASCII of any kind?

Can you please cite the section and the RFC that supports your answer.

*NB: For those who might think this is not programming related - it is. It's related to an ISAPI filter I'm building.*

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**Addendum**

I've read section 2.5 of RFC 3986. But RFC 2616, which I believe is the current HTTP protocol, predates 3986, and for that reason I'd suppose it cannot be compliant with 3986. Furthermore, even if or when the HTTP RFC is updated, there still will be the issue of rationalization - in other words, *does an HTTP URI support ALL of the RFC3986 provisos, including whatever is appropriate to include non US-ASCII characters?*

Answer: 
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internationalized_domain_name>
Here is an example: ☃.net.

In terms of the relevant section of RFC 3986, I think you are looking at [2.5](https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc3986#section-2.5).

EDIT:

Apparently stack overflow doesn't detect this as a proper URL. You'll have to copy&paste into your browser.