Redirection with AliasMatch distinction of cases

[Mullimuh]

Hi together,

I need to make a redirection in apache, so the user is redirected according to his/her browser language settings to the appropriate subdirectory, where the index.html file in the according language is stored. I use AliasMatch because I don`t want user to see the whole path for the webproject.

So I edited the httpd.conf with following 2 lines:

AliasMatch ^(?:/(?:enŠesŠfrŠjaŠkoŠru))?(/.*)?$ "/usr/local/apache2/htdocs/MyProject/eng$1"

AliasMatch ^(?:/(?:de))?(/.*)?$ "/usr/local/apache2/htdocs/MyProject/de$1"

The problem is as following:
the apache doesn`t evaluate the second alias match. It redirects all requests to the english version, for all of the language settings.

I suppose, I should design the regular expression, so that apache woudn`t be able to execute the first AliasMatch in case the given language settings are not available.

Woulld you give me any hints, HOW I can achieve this?

Thanks for your help

[jdMorgan]

Mullimuh,

Welcome to WebmasterWorld!

It is not obvious to me how you are getting the browser language preferences with this approach, so this answer may be totally off-topic. A more common method would be to use mod_rewrite in conjunction with cookies. The initial language setting would be taken from the browser's Accept-Language header (if present). In addition, you should provide a language selection function, supported by a cookie, to allow the user to select a diffferent language; You cannot assume that the visitor has control over the browser settings, as this may not be his/her machine. It may be a work machine where the settings are controlled by the IT department, or it may be a machine in an internet cafe where the settings have been modifed to a language not spoken by the current user. And there are many users who don't know that they can set a language preference at all. Therefore, a "manual" setting is to be preferred over any automatic function for usability reasons.

In this case, and assuming that you set a cookie called "lang_pref", the code might look something like this:

# Case: No language preference cookie set - Use browser language preference
RewriteCond %{QUERY_STRING} !lang_pref=[a-z]{2}
RewriteCond %{HTTP:Accept-Language} (de¦enŠesŠfrŠjaŠkoŠru)
RewriteRule ^/([^.]+\.html)$ /%1/$1 [L]
#
# Case: Language preference cookie set - Use cookie
RewriteCond %{QUERY_STRING} lang_pref=(de¦enŠesŠfrŠjaŠkoŠru)
RewriteRule ^/([^.]+\.html)$ /%1/$1 [L]
#
# Case: No language preference - Use default language
RewriteRule ^/([^.]+\.html)$ /en/$1 [L]

The above code assumes that you have fully-duplicated all (html) pages of the site into localized subdirectories called /en, /de, /es, etc. It also assumes that the first language in the Accept-Language header is the preferred language. Since there can be multiple preferred languages in the Accept-Language header, each with an associated "weight" number, and since mod_rewrite isn't sufficiently flexible to process these weights, you may end up needing to use a script to process complex language preferences.

Another thing to look into is Content Negotiation -- For example, see Options MultiViews in the Apache documentation.

Jim

[Mullimuh]

Hallo jdMorgan,

thanks for your help. I`ve got another Question:

my Apache (2.0.54) doesn`t like the RewriteCond command in httpd.conf, it sais "RewriteCond is an invalid command". Should I install some additional support for apache to understand this?

Best regards,
Michael

[jdMorgan]

It probably doesn't like *any* mod_rewrite directive in that case.

You must have mod_rewrite installed and loaded, and you must have appropriate settings of AllowOverride and Options to allow mod_rewrite to execute. Option FollowSymLinks or option SymLinksIfOwnerMatch is required to enable mod_rewrite.

Your server error log should contain useful info on this problem, unless you've got the loglevel set too high.

Jim