Converting 2 url problems

problem doing .Htaccess rewrites, Mod_Rewrite

[aceofspade]

I've 2 original url, say :

www.somesite.com/cgi-bin/profile.cgi?john
www.somesite.com/cgi-bin/keywords.cgi?john

I want to convert above url's into clean & short url like this:

www.somesite.com/john
www.somesite.com/keywords/john

I tried:

Options +FollowSymLinks
RewriteEngine On
RewriteBase /
RewriteRule (.*)$ cgi-bin/profile.cgi?$1
RewriteRule keywords/(.*)$ cgi-bin/keywords.cgi?$1

They don't work.

Kindly advise what did I do wrong?

[g1smd]

Rules need the [L] flag on both.

The two rules should swap order, as the first rule matches all requests. The second rule never gets a chance to run.

In order to "change" the URLs you must change the links on your pages to mention the new URLs. It is links that define URLs.

The .* pattern matches all requests including those for images, stylesheets and scripts so you should change the pattern to

^([^/\.]+)$

or similar (so that it matches all requests without a file extension).

[aceofspade]

Hi,

Thanks for your reply.

As per your suggestion, I did the followings:

Options +FollowSymLinks
RewriteEngine On
RewriteBase /
RewriteRule keywords/^([^/\.]+)$ cgi-bin/keywords.cgi?q=$1
RewriteRule ^([^/\.]+)$ cgi-bin/webprofile.cgi?$1

However, they did not work because when I accessed the following url:

www.somesite.com/john
www.somesite.com/keywords/john

I could not get the page, but received a NOT FOUND Page with the following error message:

The requested URL /john was not found on this server.
The requested URL /keywords/john was not found on this server.

Kindly advise what did I do wrong?

[aceofspade]

Update to my previous post. I found a mistake I did:

RewriteRule keywords/^([^/\.]+)$ cgi-bin/keywords.cgi?q=$1

should be:
RewriteRule keywords/([^/\.]+)$ cgi-bin/keywords.cgi?q=$1

So the new .htaccess file is like the followings:

Options +FollowSymLinks
RewriteEngine On
RewriteBase /
RewriteRule keywords/([^/\.]+)$ cgi-bin/keywords.cgi?q=$1
RewriteRule ^([^/\.]+)$ cgi-bin/webprofile.cgi?$1

It works for:

www.somesite.com/keywords/john

But it does not work for:

www.somesite.com/john

How to fix the above problem?

[g1smd]

Make sure you add the [L] flag to both rules.

Flush browser cache before testing again.

[aceofspade]

OK.. this is what I did:

Options +FollowSymLinks
RewriteEngine On
RewriteBase /
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !keywords\.cgi
RewriteRule keywords/([^/\.]+)$ cgi-bin/keywords.cgi?$1 [L]
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !profile\.cgi
RewriteRule ^([^/\.]+)$ cgi-bin/profile.cgi?$1 [L]

This time it works for:

www.somesite.com/john

But it does not work for:

www.somesite.com/keywords/john

I can only get one url going, but not both. Yak!

How to fix the problem?

[jdMorgan]

The rewriteconds are not needed, since a request for <anything>.cgi will not match the rule pattern, making those explicit exclusions unnecessary. Simplify the code to this:

Options +FollowSymLinks
RewriteEngine On
RewriteBase /
#
RewriteRule ^keywords/([^/.]+)$ /cgi-bin/keywords.cgi?$1 [L]
#
RewriteRule ^([^/.]+)$ /cgi-bin/profile.cgi?$1 [L]

I'm assuming that this code is going into a .htaccess file at example.com/.htaccess
If not, please specify the location of the file where you're putting this code.

Also, it may be that your server config is non-standard. If that is the case, then you may need to add

RewriteOptions Inherit

in your top-level .htaccess or config file.
Otherwise, subdirectories (such as '/keywords') will not inherit the rules of their parent directories. This option is usually set in the server config, but sometimes it isn't, and so has to be set manually.

Jim

[aceofspade]

Hi,

Thanks for your assistance.

First, I'd like to confirm that the code is going into .htaccess file at www.somesite.com/.htaccess

(Although, when we try to access it:
www.somesite.com/.htaccess

it will say Forbidden
You don't have permission to access /.htaccess on this server.)

Second, I tried your code, it does not work without rewriteconds. Rewriteconds are needed. That is when the code is like this:

Options +FollowSymLinks
RewriteEngine On
RewriteBase /
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !profile\.cgi
RewriteRule ^([^/\.]+)$ cgi-bin/profile.cgi?$1 [L]

It will work for www.somesite.com/john

1) Without RewriteCond, i.e.

Options +FollowSymLinks
RewriteEngine On
RewriteBase /
RewriteRule ^([^/\.]+)$ cgi-bin/profile.cgi?$1 [L]

It does not work because when I access: www.somesite.com/john

It will catch 'cgi-bin/profile.cgi' as the variable instead of 'john'.

2) But after I use the above code with rewriteconds, I CANNOT use the sub-directories in the site for anthing else:

a) Let's say I've some image files in a image folder like the followings:

www.somesite.com/image/pic1.jpg

It worked before I added the above code because I can access pics1.jpg file like this:

www.somesite.com/image/pic1.jpg

pics1.jpg file CANNOT be accessed after I added the above code.

b) It will NOT work for www.somesite.com/keywords/john even after I add another RewriteRule for a subdirectory 'keywords' like the followings:

Options +FollowSymLinks
RewriteEngine On
RewriteBase /
RewriteRule keywords/([^/\.]+)$ cgi-bin/keywords.cgi?$1 [L]
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !profile\.cgi
RewriteRule ^([^/\.]+)$ cgi-bin/profile.cgi?$1 [L]

Third, the only way it will work is like this:

www.somesite.com/profile/john ---> www.somesite.com/cgi-bin/profile.cgi?john
www.somesite.com/keywords/john ---> www.somesite.com/cgi-bin/keywords.cgi?john

The code for the above is like the followings:

Options +FollowSymLinks
RewriteEngine On
RewriteBase /
RewriteRule keywords/([^/\.]+)$ cgi-bin/keywords.cgi?$1 [L]
RewriteRule profile/([^/\.]+)$ cgi-bin/profile.cgi?$1 [L]

There is no way I can make my site works like the way I like:

www.somesite.com/john ---> www.somesite.com/cgi-bin/profile.cgi?john
www.somesite.com/keywords/john ---> www.somesite.com/cgi-bin/keywords.cgi?john

Unless you can pull a hat trick for me.