Using mod_rewrite to redirect all pages to one central PHP page’.
On my site, I decided to use an all-index structure, as that’s how I prefer to do things – it means that the scripting language is more hidden from the end user than if you linked to pages such as “something-bizarre.jsp” and means that if the scripting language used to create the pages was changed the names of the pages wouldn’t have to be.
In using mod_rewrite to modify an entire website, the following points needed to be addressed:
Images and CSS files should not be rewritten
Since the only subdomain used by the site is ‘www’, if the user does not enter it then it should be added automatically and visibly for them.
All versions of a webpage should be automatically and visibly rewritten to a single URL. i.e. ‘www.example.com/somepage/’, ‘example.com/somepage/’, ‘www.example.com/somepage’ and ‘example.com/somepage’ should all resolve to ‘www.example.com/somepage/’
Once all visible rewriting has been completed, the URL should be invisibly redirected to a master page which is able to interpret the URL which the user requested and serve up the correct content.
The following is what I came up with. Please refer to “mod_rewrite, a beginner’s guide (with examples)” if you need any extra pointers as to what anything means.
###################################################
# Turn the RewriteEngine on. #
###################################################
RewriteEngine on
###################################################
# Add a leading www to domain if one is missing. #
###################################################
# If this rule is used, the rewriting stops here #
# and then restarts from the beginning with the #
# new URL #
###################################################
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} !^www\.
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://www.%{HTTP_HOST}/$1 [R=301,L]
###################################################
# Do not process images or CSS files further #
###################################################
# No more processing occurs if this rule is #
# successful #
###################################################
RewriteRule \.(css|jpe?g|gif|png)$ – [L]
###################################################
# Add a trailing slash if needed #
###################################################
# If this rule is used, the rewriting stops here #
# and then restarts from the beginning with the #
# new URL #
###################################################
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} ^/[^\.]+[^/]$
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://%{HTTP_HOST}/$1/ [R=301,L]
###################################################
# Rewrite web pages to one master page #
###################################################
# /somepage/ => master.php #
# ?page=somepage #
# /somesection/somepage => master.php #
# ?section=somesection #
# &page=somepage #
# /somesection/somesub/somepage/ #
# => master.php #
# ?section=somesection #
# &subsection=somesub #
# &page=somepage #
###################################################
# Variables are accessed in PHP using #
# $_GET[‘section’], $_GET[‘subsection’] and #
# $_GET[‘page’] #
###################################################
# No more processing occurs if any of these rules #
# are successful #
###################################################
RewriteRule ^([^/\.]+)/?$ /master.php?page=$1 [L]
RewriteRule ^([^/\.]+)/([^/\.]+)/?$ /master.php?section=$1&page=$2 [L]
RewriteRule ^([^/\.]+)/([^/\.]+)/([^/\.]+)/?$ /master.php?section=$1&subsection=$2&page=$3 [L]
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