Redirect to folder if image file not found

[jamesMP]

How would I create a RewriteCondition which matches only images files and if they're not found, tries a subfolder, a sub-subfolder, and then if still not found returns a 404?

For example:
If

example.com/images/image1.jpg

does not exist try

example.com/images/folder/image1.jpg

and:
If

example.com/image1.jpg

does not exist try

example.com/images/image1.jpg

and then

example.com/images/folder/image1.jpg

I've come up with the following, but any variation I try either gives a server error or looks in

/folder/folder/..(repeats)../folder/images/image1.jpg

RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} \.(png|bmp|jpeg|jpg|gif)$ !-f
RewriteRule ^(.*) /images/$1 [R]
RewriteRule ^(.*) /images/folder/$1 [R,L]

Thanks for any advice.

[JD_Toims]

How would I create a RewriteCondition which matches only images files and if they're not found, tries a subfolder, a sub-subfolder, and then if still not found returns a 404?

Rewrite to PHP and use is_file() + file_get_contents() instead.

[lucy24]

Within mod_rewrite, you would need to use the dreaded

!-f

flag in a RewriteCond. Don't put the Filename part in a Condition; that should be in the body of the rule.

But it's better if you post back with more detail about the exact circumstances, including how many potential files are involved.

[jamesMP]

Its basically to support an image heavy legacy site that was hosted on the same domain. The previous webmaster saw fit to save *everything* at root level, with the exception of approx 250 images (in 'images' folder), so we're talking 500(ish) images in total.

So, my aim is to move all the image files into /images/legacy/ to keep the directory structure a bit more tidy whilst still being able to serve them from the original reference.

[phranque]

move all images to one directory and internally rewrite all image requests to that directory.
anything that's missing will return a 404.