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| Home > Article Library > Webcrafting > MOD_REWRITE for Dummies | Search |
| MOD_REWRITE for Dummies by Bobby Handzhiev |
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This article is not a complete guide to Apache's mod_rewrite neither to .htaccess. Its purpose is to help you - the webmaster - to create "mod_rewriten" versions of your dynamic webpages even if you have limited technical knowledge. I won't show you all the tips-and-tricks - my aim is to bring all the complexity of the Apache's documentation to 1-2 pages of human language - easy and fast. What is mod_rewrite? Mod_rewrite is Apache extension which allows you to "rewrite" the URLs of your web pages. If your server supports this technology (most Linux webhosts do nowadays) you are able to rewrite virtually any URL into anything you like. Most often it is used to rewrite the URLs of dynamically generated webpages such as Why mod_rewrite?
How to use it? Mod_rewrite is really powerful if you are familiar with the regular expressions which it uses. Lets start: First you need to create a file called .htaccess and place it exactly in the folder where you want the rewriting to take effect (it will also take effect over all subfolders). In case you already have a .htaccess file you can simply add the lines to it (if it already has mode_rewrite directives you can mess them up, however). Open it in a simple text editor and start with: Options +FollowSymLinks Now the rewrite engine is switched on. You can now start adding as many rewrite rules as you want. The format is simple: RewriteRule rewrite_from rewrite_to Here "RewriteRule" is static text, i.e. you should not change. "rewrite_from" is the address which will be typed in the browser and "rewrite_to" - which page the server will actually activate. Both of these can contain "masks", but in "rewrite_to" we will only use $ and will discuss more or "rewrite_from" part. Let me "meet you" with the very few masks you'll need and bring you some samples. You'll see how easy is it. Let's stop talking theory and see an example. Let's imagine your server runs an e-shop, which RewriteRule ^(.*).html index.php?task=$1 What does all that mean? This is a rewrite rule which allows you to make your URLs looking as "static". In this example categories.html will be "translated" to index.php?task=categories. But what do all these strange characters mean? So, if you have categories.html it will be translated info index.php?task=categories, services.html into index.php?task=services etc... What if you have more than one parameter? First, you should use some characters as delimiter: RewriteRule ^(.*)-(.*).html index.php?task=$1&language=$2 Here how you can also pass task and language. For example, categories-englist.html will be translated into index.php?task=categories&language=english. IMPORTANT: If you first write Make It Better The rule (.*) is too general and often may prevent you of making more complicated rewriting rules. So it is recommended that you "limit" the rules into something more concrete. Here are a couple of advices: - Use the "OR" operator. In our e-shop example we have only few possible "tasks" passed to index.php. Lets say: What will happen if you want to use your static file about.html? It will be rewritten into index.php?task=about and won't work. So you can use the OR operator and limit the rewriting only to the cases you need: RewriteRule ^(categories|category|product|services).html index.php?task=$1 This tells the server to rewrite only if the file name is categories.html OR category.html OR product.html OR services.html Using "numbers": You can easy limit the rewriter to rewrite if it meets only numbers at a certain place: RewriteRule ^category-([0-9]*).html index.php?task=category&id=$1 With ([0-9]*) mask you tell the rewrite engine that on the mask place it should expect onlly numbers. So if it see category-english.html it won't rewrite to index.php?task=category&id=english, but to index.php?task=category&language=english (because of the rule we have shown above - RewriteRule ^(.*)-(.*).html index.php?task=$1&language=$2.). Complete example: Here is how will look the final .htaccess file for our imaginary e-shop: -------- Options +FollowSymLinks
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