.htaccess / php url rewriting without routing?

Question

So I've been searching for a while now and can't find anything specific on how to create a pretty url / seo / slug url type system WITHOUT sending everything to a index.php or moving things into subfolders.

Basically I'm making a website which you can currently go to urls like movie.php?id=#### / show.php?id=####. Ideally I'd like the url to be movie/#### or movie/id/#### (or down the line slugs of the name that i can use to grab the right one) etc.

Is there a way to do it without having a single index.php router or am I just going to have to rewrite all my files to adhere to this style?

JonathanStevens · Accepted Answer · 2015-08-27 11:26:31Z

5

You can create a rewrite rule in .htaccess that routes the movie urls to movie.php as follows:

movie/123:

RewriteRule ^movie/(\d+)$ movie.php?id=$1 [L]

movie/id/123:

RewriteRule ^movie/id/(\d+)$ movie.php?id=$1 [L]

movie/title-of-movie:

RewriteRule ^movie/(\S+)$ movie.php?slug=$1 [L]

movie/title/title-of-movie:

RewriteRule ^movie/title/(\S+)$ movie.php?slug=$1 [L]

combination movie/123/title-of-movie:

RewriteRule ^movie/(\d+)/(\S+)$ movie.php?id=$1&slug=$2 [L]

Edit: added a full .htaccess example for 1 required with up to 2 extra optional parameters with a fallback on index.php if the url is not for movies.

Options -Indexes
IndexIgnore */*

Options FollowSymLinks
AddDefaultCharset utf-8

<IfModule mod_rewrite.c>
    RewriteEngine On
    RewriteBase /

    RewriteRule ^movie/([^/]+)/?([^/]*)/?([^/]*)$ movie.php?param1=$1&param2=$2&param3=$3 [L]

    RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
    RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
    RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-l
    RewriteRule . index.php [L]
</IfModule>

^ to match from the beginning
$ to match until the end
? for 0 or 1 occurrence
+ for 1 or more occurrences
* for 0 or more occurrences

If the url rule does not match and the file does not exist then it will route the url to index.php, but you can remove that last part if you don't want that.

edited Aug 27, 2015 at 11:26

answered Aug 26, 2015 at 22:24

JonathanStevens

4723 silver badges9 bronze badges

Sign up to request clarification or add additional context in comments.

2 Comments

jkingaround Over a year ago

I tried some of these but weren't working. Can you provide the full "block" as it were? I'd like a dynamic way rather than the wildcard approach as some pages will allow for more variables. Also how can I account for option parameters? If a page can have up to 3 parameters but the minimum is 1? Do I need separate rules? Thanks! :)

JonathanStevens Over a year ago

I added a full .htaccess example. These rules take urls into account that are e.g. movie/first/second/third from start to end. If you have an url part before "movie" you will need to add this to the rules as well, or leave out the ^ at the beginning.

Ian Drake · Accepted Answer · 2015-08-27 02:48:41Z

Yes, assuming your URL structure follows a relatively consistent pattern, you can definitely do this with an .htaccess file and mod_rewrite (without the need for an index.php file, commonly referred to as a front controller).

Here's a really simple example:

RewriteEngine On
RewriteBase /

RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-l

RewriteRule ^(.*)/(.*)$ $1.php?id=$2 [NC,L]

This takes an incoming URL like http://example.com/movie/3 and performs a transparent/internal rewrite (so the user doesn't see the URL change) to http://example.com/movie.php?id=3.

Of course, this example could be expanded to handle more parameters, etc. but hopefully this gets you started on the right path. I highly recommend you read the mod_rewrite documentation for more details: http://httpd.apache.org/docs/2.4/mod/mod_rewrite.html

Collectives™ on Stack Overflow

.htaccess / php url rewriting without routing?

2 Answers 2

2 Comments

Comments

Your Answer

Hot Network Questions

Collectives™ on Stack Overflow

2 Answers 2

2 Comments

Comments

Your Answer

Sign up or log in

Post as a guest

Related