Apache Mod Rewrite for Pretty URLs isn't working

Question

I\'m trying to figure out how to do an apache mod_rewrite to remap $_GET.

What I\'m trying to accomplish:

Currentl

Answer 1

Basically, you need two rules. One rule to redirect the client to a clean URL and another to internally rewrite the pretty URL to the real content via index.php.

Assuming the index.php and .htaccess is in a directory cdi

RewriteEngine on

# prevent endless loop
RewriteCond %{ENV:REDIRECT_STATUS} 200
RewriteRule ^ - [L]

# redirect the client
RewriteCond %{QUERY_STRING} URL=pages/(.+?)\.php
RewriteRule ^index\.php$ /cdi/%1? [R,L]

# exclude rewriting all files located in /cdi/files
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !^/cdi/files/
# rewrite to real content
RewriteRule ^.*$ /cdi/index.php?URL=pages/$0.php [L]

Update:

When the request is /cdi/index.php?URL=pages/abc.php, the second rule extracts the needed URL part and redirects the client to the new URL path. The client then requests the new URL /cdi/abc and the third rule takes this and does an internal rewrite to the real content.

This all works fine as it should, but would rewrite and redirect indefinitely. To break this endless rule, the first rule checks the environment %{ENV:...}, if the request was already redirected REDIRECT_STATUS and then stops the cycle with the RewriteRule

RewriteRule ^ - [L]

which matches everything ^ and does no substitution, but ends the rewrite cycle with the flag [L]

Instead of using the system provided environment STATUS/REDIRECT_STATUS, you can also set a variable yourself with the flag E=SEO:1 for example, and then test for this variable with

RewriteCond %{ENV:REDIRECT_SEO} 1

For the REDIRECT_ prefix, see Available Variables.