1script - 3:45 pm on Sep 23, 2012 (gmt 0)

@lucy24: Thanks for your input, lucy24. I understand what you're saying about the greedy regex, I just wanted to be safe in case a "legitimate" URL with a plus sign in it existed on this site. Turns out, it does exist (I only had enough time to find one so far) but it also does not work, so in the end, I am going to simplify the regex and make it stop on the plus sign. Looks like there's no other way but to rename the file which now happens to be called '600+.shtml' into '600plus.shtml' and update the links to it. Not a big deal, at least not unless I find many more of those.

I don't get where the redirect is coming from.

This must be internal Apache 2 feature. The URL with the sign used to work in Apache 1.3 and I have looked at both the .htaccess and the httpd.conf and there's nothing in either of the configs that would instruct to make that redirect.

You can use spaces; they just don't travel well.

I don't believe actual spaces travel at all - the browser converts them to %20 or to "+", so Apache never sees an actual space. By the way, "%20" in a URL works just fine, it's only the plus sign that's a trouble.

Cheers!

P.S. I forgot to mention that a plus sign in the query string works fine, too and has always worked - the issue was always only about the part before the "?"