1 - Since each article on the site will be linked to from within the site, is it really even necessary to rewrite the URI's? I know Google would find the pages, but maybe other SE's would too, since they really aren't very long or complex URI's and there is a link to each one on the site. Of course, if they are shorter and simpler it would also be easier for people to remember and/or type them in if they need to.
2 - This site will have URI's of the type:
www.domain.com/section1/article_topic1.php?topic1=article_id
www.domain.com/section1/article_topic2.php?topic2=article_id
www.domain.com/section2/article_topic1.php?topic1=article_id
In the future more sections and topics within those sections will be added. There is a possibility that some topic names will be used in more than one section. The article_id's will be unique within a section, but maybe not between sections.
I would like the URI's to be something like:
www.domain.com/section1/topic1/article_id
or even
www.domain.com/section1/article_id
The only way I can figure out how to do this is to have 3 different rewrite rules:
RewriteRule ^(.*?)section1/topic1/(.*)$
$1section1/article_topic1.php?topic1=$2
RewriteRule ^(.*?)section1/topic2/(.*)$
$1section1/article_topic2.php?topic2=$2
RewriteRule ^(.*?)section2/topic1/(.*)$
$1section2/article_topic1.php?topic1=$2
Is it possible to do this within one rewrite rule?
3 - The code I am now using to generate the links to the articles is:
<a href=\"article_topic1.php?topic1=$topic1[code]\">$topic1[art_title]</a>
If I rewrite the URI's this would need to be changed, but I'm not sure how or if it could be done - wouldn't I have to still pass the variable 'topic1' to the file article_topic1.php? article_topic1.php queries the database by looking for code (which is the article_id) and then pulls out the associated article title, text, etc. from the database.
I apologize if I'm not explaining this clearly. This is my first time to make a site this complex.
Sure, just use a second backreference (Indicated by parens and called by "$")
If I understand what you want to do, then
RewriteRule ^section([0-9])/topic([0-9])/(.*)$ section$1/article_topic$2.php?topic$2=$3
Will take
www.domain.com/section3/topic4/article_14
and rewrite it to:
www.domain.com/section3/article_topic4.php?topic4=article_14
How to decode this mess:
Each pair of parenthesis creates a "back-reference", that is, mod_rewrite "remembers" the
contents that matched what's inside the parens on the left side of the rule.
On the right side, $1, $2, $3, etc. can then be used to sustitute the "remembered" text.
The square brackets are used to specify sets, which can be numbers 0-9, letters a-f or A-F, single
characters - any of which are acceptable, etc. I used 0-9 to match up to 10 sections or topics.
Note that the dollar sign at the end on the *left* side of the RewriteRule is only an "end-of-text"
anchor, not a backreference. Backreferences are only called by "$" on the *right* side of the rule.
Need more? This will accept one- or two-digit sections, and one- to three-digit topics:
RewriteRule ^section([0-9]{1,2})/topic([0-9]{1,3})/(.*)$ section$1/article_topic($2).php?topic$2=$3
The form is {min_count,maxcount} or just {required_count} .
Fun huh?
Well, I hope I understood what you wanted to do! (As always when posting rewrites, I hope I didn't
do a major typo - please test thoroughly before using!!!)
Cheers,
Jim
[edited - Yup... Typo!]
The actual text names of the sections and topics are entries in the database also. For each topic, there is a page that will display each article title as a link.
That's basically what I do. First the rule then the explanation:
1. RewriteEngine on
2. RewriteRule ^(.*)index.php$ - [L]
3. RewriteRule !(.*)\.(gif¦jpg¦png¦css¦js)$ /index.php [L]
Line 1 should be obvious.
Line 2 stops the thing from getting caught in an infinite loop. Basically it says that if it's already been rewritten, then stop.
Line 3 says, rewrite anything that is not gif/css/etc to index.php
index.php then parses the url that was requested, which has no real meaning - it just corresponds to the path that is created by using the section name + sub section name + sub sub section name + .... + article name (and no, I don't really have this many subsections, but if I did, I would not need to change the code any).
Within index.php it further parses the url and basically checks
1. is it a file that actually exists? If so, just serve that file. This allows me to creat a static page or a zip file or something like that and still serve it without creating a virutal path for it in the DB
2. is it a valid virtual path (ie does it match an article in the DB) to a section index page? If so, serve up that page.
3. is it a valid virutal path to an article? Serve that page
4. it is not a valid page, serve a custom 404 page.
You may find the following page useful (it's basically where I got started):
[phpbuilder.com...]
Also check out the page on A List Apart, which covers pretty much the same thing, but I'd have to search for it.
Tom
