validPortRegEx=regexp.MustCompile("^([1-9]\\d{0,3}|0|[1-5][0-9]{4}|6[0-4][0-9]{3}|65[0-4][0-9]{2}|655[0-2][0-9]|6553[0-5])$")// adapted from https://stackoverflow.com/a/12968117
tooManyColonsError=errors.New("ref may only contain a single colon character (:) unless specifying a port number")
)
type(
// Reference defines the main components of a reference specification