friendly url mod_rewrite?

[rajchahal]

hi

Could someone help with friendly url's pls. I already have a index.php page in the root and also a dynamic page called page.php - This page pulls database pages i.e contacts, cinema and so on.  (using php5). If it's any easier I can move pages into folders and re-name to index.php ?

 

My current url is

www.mysite.co.uk/page.php?page=cinema

and would like (prefer)

www.mysite.co.uk/cinema

or

www.mysite.co.uk/page/cinema

 

Thanks

 

 

 

 

[JasonLewis]

Your in luck. I recently had to find a solution to this problem. Because I too prefer those sorts of URLs.

 

You need to make sure that your host or server has the "rewrite_module" enabled. If your running WAMP just click on the status bar icon, go to Apache, then go to Apache modules. Scroll down and look for rewrite_module, enable it if you haven't already done so...

 

Then, create a file called .htaccess

In that file put this:

 

RewriteEngine on

RewriteRule ^([^/\.]+)/?$ page.php?page=$1 [L]
RewriteRule ^([^/\.]+)/([^/\.]+)/?$ page.php?page=$1&section=$2 [L]
RewriteRule ^([^/\.]+)/([^/\.]+)/([^/\.]+)/?$ page.php?page=$1&section=$2&subsection=$3 [L]

 

The three different things allow for subsections etc etc... Hope that clears a few things up.

 

This creates pages like www.mysite.com/aboutus/

[rajchahal]

hi ProjectFear

 

This worked first time - spot-on.

It works with all directories.

 

I also have other pages in the whats on section current URL is:

 

http://www.mysite.co.uk/whats_on_article.php?id=22  - any suggestions on this ? maybe 'whats_on_article/22  ?

and

http://www.mysite.co.uk/press.php - how can I remove .php?

 

Thanks again

[JasonLewis]

Just add another:

 

RewriteRule ^([^/\.]+)/?$ page.php?page=$1 [L]

 

But make it:

 

RewriteRule /whatson/^([^/\.]+)/?$ whats_on_article.php?id=$1 [L]

 

And for the other one:

 

RewriteRule ^/press/$ press.php  [L]

 

Hope thats all good, I'm still not brilliant with mod_rewrite yet.

 

EDIT:

Here is a link that may help you.

http://www.easymodrewrite.com/

[rajchahal]

thanks

 

the last two commands don't work.

 

my .htaccess is

 

RewriteEngine on


RewriteRule ^([^/\.]+)/?$ page.php?page=$1 [L]
RewriteRule ^([^/\.]+)/([^/\.]+)/?$ page.php?page=$1&section=$2 [L]
RewriteRule ^([^/\.]+)/([^/\.]+)/([^/\.]+)/?$ page.php?page=$1&section=$2&subsection=$3 [L]

RewriteRule /whatson/^([^/\.]+)/?$ whats_on_article.php?id=$1 [L]
RewriteRule ^/press/$ press.php  [L]

 

so if I go to url

www.mysite.co.uk/press or www.mysite.co.uk/whatson

I'm actually getting the wrong page (page.php)

 

I've also notices if I type in a page that does not exist i.e

www.mysite.co.uk/doesnotexist

I'm also being served up page.php rather than a page not found error..

 

Any clues pls

[JasonLewis]

Try moving the bottom two rules to the top... In your page.php, have something like this:

 

if(!isset($_GET['page'])){
$page = "home";
}else{
$page = $_GET['page'];
}

if(file_exists("pages/".$page.".php")){
//the file is valid, include it
}else{
//404 error, include your 404 script.
}

[rajchahal]

hi again - sorry to keep this thread going -

 

I've tried swapping the two lines to the top but still it does't work. then I tried to alter

RewriteRule ^/press/$ press.php  [L] to RewriteRule ^press$ press.php  [L]  I've removed forward slashes and now mysite.com/press works.

 

I've also added this:

RewriteRule ^whatson$ whats_on_listing.php  [L]

 

but the whats_on_listing.php i'm passing variables to on some occations, these are :

 

whats_on_listing.php?viewstate=today

whats_on_listing.php?viewstate=week

whats_on_listing.php?viewstate=soon

 

I want to achieve

whatson/today

whatson/week

whatson/soon

 

Thanks

 

 

 

[JasonLewis]

Okay... Try this for the whats on thing:

 

RewriteRule ^whatson/([^/\.]+)/?$ whats_on_listing.php?viewstate=$1&nextvariable=$2  [L]

 

To add more variables, you do this, I think: ()

RewriteRule ^whatson/([^/\.]+)/([^/\.]+)/?$ whats_on_listing.php?viewstate=$1  [L]

 

And so on...

[rajchahal]

Hi

 

I think it was working all along (most of it anyway)- The problem was that when I was trying it, I was being served a page without css and assumed it wasn't working at all.

 

Whats seems to be happening is that when I add

RewriteRule ^whatson/([^/\.]+)/?$ whats_on_listing.php?viewstate=$1&nextvariable=$2  [L]

 

to the htaccess it also alters the root folder path.

Rather than the root being www.mysite.com it changes it to  www.mysite.com/whats_on_listing.php

so the stylesheet and images cant be found.

I added ../ infront of the css file and it seems to now work, though a bit tedious. Is there something i could add in htaccess to solve this?

[JasonLewis]

Yeah I have encountered this problem. Which is why I add full paths or links to my images/css files now.

 

There may be a solution though, I think you can do some stuff with mod_rewrite but I'm happy with giving it full paths or links.

[rajchahal]

hi again I've got the urls to work - thanks so much

 

I'm now looking at sending a 404 error if someone goes to

 

www.mysite.com/nopage

 

you gave me the code:

if(file_exists("pages/".$page.".php")){

//the file is valid, include it

}else{

//404 error, include your 404 script.

}

 

The page.php is in the root, so I removed from the path 'pages/'

But I keep getting the 404 error

 

Is it possible to check the existance of a dynamic page in this way? as only page.php actually exists?

I'm echoing the $page variable and this gives me the correct page name.

 

[JasonLewis]

I've heard of this, but never tried it. At the end of your .htaccess place this:

 

ErrorDocument 404 /path/to/404/error.php

 

Where /path/to/404/error.php is the path to your 404 error page. Hope that works.

 

Good luck.