Testing mod rewrite using .htaccess

[justgowithit]

I’m trying to use .htaccess for mod_rewrite and was wondering if there’s a simple way to test if it is working prior to me banging my head against the wall tweaking regex.

I’m aware of test code for mod_rewrite via httpd.conf…. Is there similar code for using .htaccess?

Any help is greatly appreciated.

[jdMorgan]

Sure, try a simple rule in your top-level .htaccess file:

Options +FollowSymLinks
RewriteEngine on
RewriteRule ^foo\.html$ /path_to_page_that_exists.html [L]

Request the page "foo.html" from your domain, and the server should respond by serving up the page that actually exists.

Note that the "Options" line may not be needed. Or it may not be allowed. Or it may be required -- Depends on your server configuration.

Jim

[justgowithit]

Thanks Jim,

For some reason I keep getting a 404 error. I tried this on three different hosts, one of which I know is configured properly for sure. For someone who picks things up quickly this mod_rewrite stuff sure seems like voo-doo to me....

[jdMorgan]

Change it to do an external redirect. Then you can see what happens (if anything) in your browser address bar:

Options +FollowSymLinks
RewriteEngine on
RewriteRule ^foo\.html$ http://www.example.com/path_to_page_that_exists.html [R=301,L]

Jim

[justgowithit]

Ah Ha - that worked! Jim, you’re the magician to this voo-doo. Thank you for your help. If you couldn’t tell, I’m new to mod_rewrite ;).

Just out of curiosity; why did the internal link throw a 404? Will I still be able to use this technique to clean up my dynamic URLs for this (less than desirable) host?