Issue with mod_rewrite and internal redirect

[Psycho]

I don't have any prior experience with mod_rewrite and am trying to create internal redirects to create a test harness for an application. I am using Apache on an XAMPP install. I have enabled mod_rewrite by modifying the conf file. I can get some rules to work that will modify the URL in the browser (i.e. external redirect), but I cannot get ones to work that do an internal redirect.

For example, if I have two files: foo.html and bar.html

If I use a Redirect in my .htaccess file

RewriteEngine  on
Redirect "/foo.html" "/bar.html"

Then attempting to load localhost:8080/foo.html is redirected in the browser address bar and in the loaded content. However, what I want to happen is to enter the URL for foo.html and only see the content for bar.html - i.e. the address in the browser should still display foo.html. Based on the examples, I've seen I need to use a RewriteRule. I have tried a couple different ways to do this (see below) based on info at apache.org. But when I do, I still get the content for foo.html. It's as if the RewriteRule is not doing anything.

Here is the format I think I should be using so the url in the browser is not changed:

RewriteEngine  on
RewriteRule    "^/foo\.html$"  "/bar.html" [PT]

Here is another version using RewriteRule, that I think should work just like Redirect (which is working)

RewriteEngine  on
RewriteRule    "^/foo\.html$"  "bar.html"  [R]

But, as stated above, neither of these work - I just get the content for foo.html (and the URL is unchanged). Any ideas?

 

FWIW: Here is the actual logic I want to achieve using a RedirectMatch but, as stated above, I want to do with as an internal redirect which is hidden from the calling agent.

RedirectMatch "/data/FAMStaticData/(.*).txt(.*)" "http://localhost:8080/index.php?file=$1"

 

[benanamen]

Here you go

• Line 1 enables the rewrite engine.
• Line 2 contains the RewriteRule directive:
• The pattern ^old.html$ matches the page which starts (^) and ends ($) with old.htm.
• The substitution is the new.htm page.
• The flag [NC] means the pattern is not case-sensitive.
• When a user tries to access the old page, the server shows the contents from the new.htm page instead.

 

RewriteEngine On
RewriteRule ^old.htm$ new.htm [NC]