simplified url parameter passing

[kevinlcarlson]

I'd like for users to be able to pass URL parameters simply, for example instead of www.mysite.php?id=12345 I'd like to allow them to type www.mysite.php/12345

 

I've seen this done on a few sites, and wonder whether there's some way for PHP to process it?  Would this method involve .htaccess, etc.?

Maybe it intercepts 404 error conditions?

 

Thanks!

Kevin

 

[bubbasheeko]

Hi Kevin,

 

This would be handled by .htaccess.

 

# Enable mod_rewrite, start rewrite engine

RewriteEngine On

 

RewriteRule (.*)/$ index.php?id=$1

 

RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} !^(.*)\.mysite\.com$ [NC]

RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://www.mysite.com/$1 [R=301,L]

[kevinlcarlson]

Wow, thanks for the tip!  I hadn't seen Rewrite used before!

 

I also came across ErrorDocument 404 /process/404err.php which treats the url parameter as an unknown web page and redirects for processing.  The passed parameter can then be extracted as substr($_SERVER["SCRIPT_URL"],1) for processing.  I'll try both approaches to see what works best for this situation...

 

For security purposes, I wonder if it's possible to simultaneously prevent users from directly accessing a redirect directory by using a 403 handler?

I tried restricting the subdirectory access to only allow requests from the server's own IP address, but this blocked everything.  Or, maybe I should just use IndexIgnore * to hide everything from hackers, bots, etc.?

 

Thanks again,

Kevin