correcting 404's with PHP

$REQUEST_URI is blank?

[davidpbrown]

In an effort to correct 404's for upper case and underscores, I have htaccess suggesting
ErrorDocument 404 /error/notfound.php

and notfound.php as
<?php
$request = $_SERVER['$REQUEST_URI'];
$location = strtolower($request);
$newlocation = strtr($location, "_", "-");
if ($newlocation==$request) {
header('Location: [mysite.com...]
} else {
$newlocation = "http://www.mysite.com" + $newlocation;
header('Location: $newlocation');
}
?>

BUT it's not working.. REQUEST_URI is apparently blank.. (I stuck a file write in there to find out what was happening)

Is it recommended to use PHP for 404 correction's and, if so, can you suggest what might be wrong?

Thanks

[bcolflesh]

If you try:

$request = $REQUEST_URI;
echo $request;

Is it still blank?

Does your .htaccess file have any Rewrite rules?

[davidpbrown]

$request = $REQUEST_URI; crashes out I expect because $REQUEST_URI is undefined.

echo $request; doesn't do anything for me.. I did think of that but couldn't see what it did (I'd expected output to screen)
so instead opted for
$file="test.txt";
$fp = fopen($file,"a");
fwrite($fp, "\r\n=?");
fwrite($fp, $request);
fwrite($fp, "\r\n=>");
fwrite($fp, $newlocation);
fclose($fp);

which I take to be foolproof.. and it does indeed output what I'd expect.. so does the filter.. it's just that the input seems to be blank.

This originally from a suggestion by ggrot in thread [webmasterworld.com...] to use PHP_SELF but that generates only /notfound.php i.e. the location of the php file itself not the requested URI.

There's no conflicting Redirects in the htaccess as I removed them all.. this is all inside a temp directory while I'm trying it.

I wondered if this might be because it's two steps.. one through .htaccess

Do we know, has anyone else used PHP for 404 correction that I could see example?

[ams_david]

$request = $_SERVER['$REQUEST_URI'];

$ on REQUEST_URI is not necesarry. Try it this way.:

$request = $_SERVER['REQUEST_URI'];

[bcolflesh]

ams_david is correct - I missed that - but my example works fine with PHP 4.3.2 - as I am doing exactly what you asking about - must be the difference of our server configs.

[davidpbrown]

Excellent .. thankyou ams_david

<?php
$request = $_SERVER['REQUEST_URI'];
$newrequest = strtolower($request);
$newrequest = strtr($newrequest, "_", "-");
if ($newrequest==$request) {
header('Location: [mysite.com...]
} else {
$newrequest = "Location: [mysite.com".$newrequest;...]
header($newrequest);
}
?>

and now it works and I am happy :)