Remove spaces in file name and redirect to root

how to fix it

[Lorel]

I have a file name that looks like this that I wanted to redirect to the root however it's giving 500 error messages.

RewriteRule ^foldername1/foldername2\ kw1\ kw2\.html$
http://www.example.com/oldfoldername2-kw1-kw2-kw3.html [R=301,L]

Can someone tell me what's wrong with the coding?

[whitespace]

Providing the spaces are correctly backslash escaped (which they look like they are - but it’s tricky to tell for sure when the code isn’t code-formatted) then there doesn’t appear to be a problem with the directive you posted.

Instead of backslash escaping spaces you can also use the whitespace shorthand character class \s instead or simply surround the argument in double quotes.

Check your error log for the specifics of this error.

Aside: Arguably, this directive doesn’t “redirect to the root”.

[phranque]

it's giving 500 error messages

check the server error log file for clues

Can someone tell me what's wrong with the coding?

it appears to be okay.
how do you know this is the rule generating the error causing the 500 status code?