Getting PHP to read the clean URL created by .htaccess

[acs8]

Hi there, I wonder if you can help me out.

I'm trying to create clean URLs and so far I've managed to use .htaccess to convert the following URL:

https://www.example.com/index.php?catagory=Section1&page=Page1

into:

https://www.example.com/Section1/Page1/

The problem is then getting PHP to interpret the URL and extract the variables. Here's the code I'm using:

.htaccess code:

Options +FollowSymLinks
Options +Indexes
RewriteEngine on

#INTERNAL STATIC URL TO DYNAMIC URL
RewriteRule ^/([^/]+)/?$ /index.php?c=$1 [L]
RewriteRule ^/([^/]+)/([^/]+)/?$ /index.php?c=$1&p=$2 [L]

#EXTERNAL DYNAMIC URL TO STATIC URL
RewriteCond %{THE_REQUEST} ^[a-zA-Z0-9]{1,3}\ /index\.php\?catagory=([^&]+)\ HTTP/
RewriteRule ^index\.php$ http://www.example.com/%1/? [R=301,L] 
RewriteCond %{THE_REQUEST} ^[a-zA-Z0-9]{1,3}\ /index\.php\?catagroy=([^&]+)&page=([^&]+)\ HTTP/
RewriteRule ^index\.php$ http://www.example.com/%1/%2/? [R=301,L]

PHP code:

$urlVariables = explode("/",$_SERVER['REQUEST_URI']);
$catagory = $urlVariables[1];
$page = $urlVariables[2];

With this I keep getting a 404 error page. If I add index.php into this line of the htacces code:

RewriteRule ^index\.php$ http://www.example.com/[B]index.php[/B]/%1/? [R=301,L]

The page at least loads, but the css and images are not loaded.

Any suggestions to what I'm missing here?
Many thanks

[dlite922]

You need to make an exception for js and css files I think.

Not sure.

[philipwayne]

Someone correct me if I'm wrong but I think that could be due to paths. Your no longer at a relative path you need to use absolute paths if your using rewrite.


/home/stylesheets/main.css != /home/rewriten/stylesheets/main.css

[Atli]

Hey.

To fix the stuff like images and css files, you could try something like:
[code=htaccess]RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} \.(css|js|jpe?g |png|gif|ttf|eo t)$ [NC]
RewriteRule ([^/\.]+)\.(css|js|jpe ?g|png|gif|ttf| eot)$ /resources/$2/$1.$2[/code]
That should rewrite all of the listed extensions into "/resources/ext/file.ext".
(Note I haven't tested it yet.)

It is of course best to just use absolute paths when loading resources.

[Atli]

As to your internal rewrites, I see one potentially fatal problem.
Your first rule, "^/([^/]+)/?$", matches all requests that start with a "/", that include an undetermined amount of non "/" characters, and that may or may not end in "/"... That'll match pretty much everything, including "/index.php?c=xxx &p=yyy".

This will most likely leave you in an indefinite loop, eventually causing Apache to break out with a 500 code. (A match causes an internal redirect, which is then process again as a new request and subsequently passed through mod_rewrite again.)

Also, I'm not entirly sure you should be including the "/" char at the beginning of the regular expression. Apache may strip it from the request URL. (Not 100% sure though.)

Try something like this instead:
[code=htaccess]RewriteRule ^([^/]+)/?([^/]+)?/? index.php?c=$1& p=$2 [L,QSA][/code]
(Note, this one replaced both of your internal requests. The second option is made optional by the ? char.)

P.S.
If you need to specify some specific directory before the "index.php" , you may want to try the RewriteBase instead.
[code=htaccess]RewriteBase http://example.com/some/dir/
RewriteRule ^([^/]+)/?([^/]+)?/? index.php?c=$1& p=$2 [L,QSA][/code]
There the index.php in the RewriteRule is rewritten as http://example.com/some/dir/index.php?c=xxx&p=yyy