What is .htaccess?

[Tomness]

What is htaccess - I have seen it, and acknowledged it, but I am not sure about what it is for, and what it does.

[edited by: rogerd at 5:31 pm (utc) on July 1, 2005]
[edit reason] typo [/edit]

[rogerd]

Apache servers use a configuration file named .htaccess for a variety of purposes - the most common one discussed here is URL rewriting. It can be as simple as turning requests for example.com into www.example.com, or as complex as converting a lengthy dynamic URL into an apparently static one.

Check the Apache Forum [webmasterworld.com] for .htaccess discussion. It's a great tool, and allows you to do neat things even in shared hosting environments since it can be put in your document root (or other) directories. Windows servers, unfortunately, have nothing like it.

[Tomness]

Oh right, so if I ever set up a redirection from my domain, it will edit there?

Say from wwWebmasterWorldebsite.com/index.html >> wwWebmasterWorldebsite.com/www/index.html

Is that the file that would be editied automaticaly via Cpanel?

[jdMorgan]

Yes, most probably. The die-hards here would ask, "What's a cPanel?" though... :)

Jim