diff -r 4329486b5c09 -r 7b7bb075aed8 Lib/http/client.py
--- a/Lib/http/client.py	Sat Nov 20 14:48:27 2010 -0500
+++ b/Lib/http/client.py	Sat Nov 20 17:13:16 2010 -0500
@@ -71,7 +71,7 @@
 import io
 import os
 import socket
-from urllib.parse import urlsplit
+from urllib.parse import urlsplit, urlunsplit
 import warnings
 
 __all__ = ["HTTPResponse", "HTTPConnection",
@@ -834,8 +834,9 @@
 
         # Save the method we use, we need it later in the response phase
         self._method = method
-        if not url:
-            url = '/'
+        req_scheme, req_netloc, req_path, req_query, req_fragment = urlsplit(url)
+        url = urlunsplit((req_scheme, req_netloc, req_path or '/', req_query, req_fragment))
+
         request = '%s %s %s' % (method, url, self._http_vsn_str)
 
         # Non-ASCII characters should have been eliminated earlier