Make no mistake, mod_rewrite is complex. This isn't the subject for a quick bite-size tech-snack, probably not even a week-end crash-course, I've seen guys pull off some real cute stuff with mod_rewrite, but with kudos-hat tipped firmly towards that bastard operator from hell, Ralf S. Engelschall, author of the magic module itself, I have to admit that a great deal of it still seems so much voodoo to me.

The way that rules can work one minute and then seem not to the next, how browser and other in-between network caches interact with rules and testing rules is often baffling, maddening. When I feel the need to bend my mind completely out of shape, I mess around with mod_rewrite!

After all this, it does work, and while I'm not planning on taking that week-end crash-course any time soon, I have picked up a few wee tricks myself, messing around with webservers and web sites, this place..

The plan here is to just drop some neat stuff, examples, things that have proven useful, and work on a variety of server setups; there are apache's all over my LAN, I keep coming across old .htaccess files stuffed with past rewriting experiments that either worked; and I add them to my list, or failed dismally; and I'm surprised that more often these days, I can see exactly why!

Very little here is my own invention. Even the bits I figured out myself were already well documented, I just hadn't understood the documents, or couldn't find them. Sometimes, just looking at the same thing from a different angle can make all the difference, so perhaps this humble stab at URL Rewriting might be of some use. I'm writing it for me, of course. but I do get some credit for this..

# time to get dynamic, see..

RewriteRule ^(.*)\.htm $1.php

Whenever you use mod_rewrite (the part of apache that does all this magic), you need to do..

you only need to do this once per .htaccess file:

Options +FollowSymlinks

RewriteEngine on

..before any ReWrite rules. note: +FollowSymLinks must be enabled for any rules to work, this is a security requirement of the rewrite engine. Normally it's enabled in the root and you shouldn't have to add it, but it doesn't hurt to do so, and I'll insert it into all the examples on this page, just in case*.

The next line simply switches on the rewrite engine
for that folder. if this directive is in you main .htaccess file, then the ReWrite engine is theoretically enabled for your entire site, but it's wise to always add that line before you write any redirections, anywhere.

* Although highly unlikely, your host may have +FollowSymLinks enabled at the root level, yet disallow its addition in .htaccess; in which case, adding +FollowSymLinks will break your setup (probably a 500 error), so just remove it, and your rules should work fine.

Important: While some of the directives on this page may appear split onto two lines, in your .htaccess file, they must exist completely on one line. If you drag-select and copy the directives on this page, they should paste just fine into any text editor.

Simply put, Apache scans all incoming URL requests, checks for matches in our .htaccess file and rewrites those matching URLs to whatever we specify. something like this..

all requests to whatever.htm will be sent to whatever.php:

Options +FollowSymlinks

RewriteEngine on

RewriteRule ^(.*)\.htm$ $1.php [NC]

Handy for anyone updating a site from static htm (you could use .html, or .htm(.*), .htm?, etc) to dynamic php pages; requests to the old pages are automatically rewritten to our new urls. no one notices a thing, visitors and search engines can access your content either way. leave the rule in; as an added bonus, this enables us to easily split php code and its included html structures into two separate files, a nice idea; makes editing and updating a breeze. The [NC] part at the end means "No Case", or "case-insensitive", but we'll get to the switches later.

Folks can link to whatever.htm or whatever.php, but they always get whatever.php in their browser, and this works even if whatever.htm doesn't exist! but I'm straying..

As it stands, it's a bit tricky; folks will still have whatever.htm in their browser address bar, and will still keep bookmarking your old .htm URL's. Search engines, too, will keep on indexing your links as .htm, some have even argued that serving up the same content from two different places could have you penalized by the search engines. This may or not bother you, but if it does, mod_rewrite can do some more magic..

this will do a "real" http redirection:

Options +FollowSymlinks

RewriteEngine on

RewriteRule ^(.+)\.htm$ http://corz.org/$1.php [R=301,NC]

This time we instruct mod_rewrite to send a proper HTTP "permanently moved" redirection, aka; "301". Now, instead of just redirecting on-the-fly, the user's browser is physically redirected to a new URL, and whatever.php appears in their browser's address bar, and search engines and other spidering entities will automatically update their links to the .php versions; everyone wins. and you can take your time with the updating, too.

For details of the many 30* response codes you can send, see here.

You may have noticed, the above examples use regular expression to match variables. What that simply means is.. match the part inside (.+) and use it to construct "$1" in the new URL. In other words, (.+) = $1 you could have multiple (.+) parts and for each, mod_rewrite automatically creates a matching $1, $2, $3, etc, in your target (aka. 'substitution') URL. This facility enables us to do all sorts of tricks, and the most common of those, is the creation of "flat links"..

Even a cute short link like http://mysite/grab?file=my.zip is too ugly for some people, and nothing less than a true old-school solid domain/path/flat/link will do. Fortunately, mod_rewrite makes it easy to convert URLs with query strings and multiple variables into exactly this, something like..

a more complex rewrite rule:

Options +FollowSymlinks

RewriteEngine on

RewriteRule ^files/([^/]+)/([^/]+).zip /download.php?section=$1&file=$2 [NC]

would allow you to present this link as..

http://mysite/files/games/hoopy.zip

and in the background have that transparently translated, server-side, to..

http://mysite/download.php?section=games&file=hoopy

which some script could process. You see, many search engines simply don't follow our ?generated=links, so if you create generating pages, this is useful. However, it's only the dumb search engines that can't handle these kinds of links; we have to ask ourselves.. do we really want to be listed by the dumb search engines? Google will handle a good few parameters in your URL without any problems, and the (hungry hungry) msn-bot stops at nothing to get that page, sometimes again and again and again…

I personally feel it's the search engines that should strive to keep up with modern web technologies, in other words; we shouldn't have to dumb-down for them. But that's just my opinion. Many users will prefer /files/games/hoopy.zip to /download.php?section=games&file=hoopy but I don't mind either way. As someone pointed out to me recently, presenting links as standard/flat/paths means you're less likely to get folks doing typos in typed URL's, so something like..

an even more complex rewrite rule:

Options +FollowSymlinks

RewriteEngine on

RewriteRule ^blog/([0-9]+)-([a-z]+) http://corz.org/blog/index.php?archive=$1-$2 [NC]

would be a neat trick, enabling anyone to access my blog archives by doing..

http://corz.org/blog/2003-nov

in their browser, and have it automagically transformed server-side into..

http://corz.org/blog/index.php?archive=2003-nov

which corzblog would understand. It's easy to see that with a little imagination, and a basic understanding of
posix regular expression, you can perform some highly cool URL manipulations.

Here's the very basics of regexp (expanded from the apache mod_rewrite documentation)..

Escaping:

\char escape that particular char

For instance to specify special characters.. [].()\ etc.

Text:

.             Any single character  (on its own = the entire URI)
[chars]       Character class: One of following chars
[^chars]      Character class: None of following chars
text1|text2   Alternative: text1 or text2 (i.e. "or")

e.g. [^/] matches any character except /
(foo|bar)\.html matches foo.html and bar.html

Quantifiers:

? 0 or 1 of the preceding text
* 0 or N of the preceding text  (hungry)
+ 1 or N of the preceding text

e.g. (.+)\.html? matches foo.htm and foo.html
(foo)?bar\.html matches bar.html and foobar.html

Grouping:

(text)  Grouping of text

Either to set the borders of an alternative or
for making backreferences where the nth group can
be used on the target of a RewriteRule with $n

e.g.  ^(.*)\.html foo.php?bar=$1

Anchors:

^    Start of line anchor
$    End   of line anchor

An anchor explicitly states that the character right next to it MUST
be either the very first character ("^"), or the very last character ("$")
of the URI string to match against the pattern, e.g..

^foo(.*) matches foo and foobar but not eggfoo
(.*)l$ matches fool and cool, but not foo

One common use of mod_rewrite is to shorten URL's. Shorter URL's are easier to remember and, of course, easier to type. An example..

beware the regular expression:

Options +FollowSymlinks

RewriteEngine On

RewriteRule ^grab(.*) /public/files/download/download.php$1

this rule would transform this user's URL..

http://mysite/grab?file=my.zip

server-side, into..

http://mysite/public/files/download/download.php?file=my.zip

which is a wee trick I use for my distro machine, among other things. everyone likes short URL's, and so will you; using this technique, you can move /public/files/download/ to anywhere else in your site, and all the old links still work fine; simply alter your .htaccess file to reflect the new location. edit one line, done - nice - means even when stuff is way deep in your site you can have cool links like this..

<!--
//<![CDATA[
<!
document.write("/trueview/sample.php")
//-->
// -->
// -->/trueview/sample.php
&lt;/p&gt; &lt;div&gt; &lt;a href="/trueview/php/sample.php" mce_href="/trueview/php/sample.php"&gt;&lt;br /&gt; /trueview/php/sample.php&lt;/a&gt; &lt;/div&gt; &lt;p&gt;
and this; links which are not only short, but flat..

Slapping (.*) onto the end of the request part of a ReWriteRule is just fine when using a simple $_GET variable, but sometimes you want to do trickier things, like capturing particular variables and converting them into other variables in the target URL. Or something else..

When capturing variables, the first thing you need to know about, is the [QSA] flag, which simply tags all the original variables back onto the end of the target url. This may be all you need. The second thing, is %{QUERY_STRING}, an Apache server string we can capture variables from, using simple RewriteCond (aka. conditional ) statements.

In the following example, the RewriteCond statement checks that the query string has the foo variable set, and captures its value while it's there. In other words, only requests for grab that have the foo variable set, will be rewritten, and while we're at it, we'll also switch foo, for bar..

capturing a $_GET variable:

Options +FollowSymlinks

RewriteEngine On

RewriteCond %{QUERY_STRING} foo=(.*)

RewriteRule ^grab(.*) /page.php?bar=%1

would translate a link/user's request for..

http://domain.com/grab?foo=foobar

server-side, into..

http://domain.com/page.php?bar=foobar

Which is to say, the user's browser would be fed page.php (without an [R] flag in the RewriteRule, their address bar would still read /grab?foo=foobar). The variable bar would be available to your script, with its value set to foobar.

This variable has been magically created, by simply using a regular ? in the target of the RewriteRule, and tagging on the first captured backreference, %1.. ?bar=%1

Note how we use the % character, to specify variables captured in RewriteCond statements, aka "Backreferences". This is exactly like using $1 to specify numbered backreferences captured in RewriteRule patterns, except for those captured inside RewriteCond statements, we use % instead of $.

You can use the [QSA] flag in addition to these query string manipulations, merge them. In the next example, the value of foo becomes the directory in the target URL, the variable file is magically created, and the original query string is then tagged back onto the end of the whole thing..

QSA Overkill!

Options +FollowSymlinks

RewriteEngine On

RewriteCond %{QUERY_STRING} foo=(.+)

RewriteRule ^grab/(.*) /%1/index.php?file=$1 [QSA]

So a request for..

http://domain.com/grab/foobar.zip?level=5&foo=bar

is translated, server-side, into..

http://domain.com/bar/index.php?file=foobar.zip&level=5&foo=bar

Depending on your needs, you could even use flat links and dynamic variables together, something like this could be useful..

mixing flat and dynamic links in a single ruleset..

Options +FollowSymlinks

RewriteEngine On

RewriteCond %{QUERY_STRING} version=(.+)

RewriteRule ^grab/([^/]+)/(.*) /%1/index.php?section=$1&file=$2 [QSA]

By the way, you can easily do the opposite, strip a query string from a URL, by simply putting a ? right at the end of the taget part. This example does exactly that, whilst leaving the actual URI intact..

just a demo!

Options +FollowSymlinks

RewriteEngine On

RewriteCond %{QUERY_STRING} .

RewriteRule foo.php(.*) /foo.php? [L]

The RewriteCond statement only allows requests that have something in their query string, to be processed by the RewriteRule, or else we'd end up in that hellish place, dread to all mod_rewriters.. the endless loop. RewriteCond is often used like this; as a safety-net.

In part one I
demonstrated a drop-dead simple mechanism for denying access to particular files and folders. The trouble with
this is the way our user gets a 403 "Access Denied" error, which is a bit like having a door slammed in your face.
Fortunately, mod_rewrite comes to the rescue again and enables us to do less painful things. One method I often
employ is to redirect the user to the parent folder..

they go "huh?.. ahhh!"

# send them up!

Options +FollowSymlinks

RewriteEngine on

RewriteRule ^(.*)$ ../ [NC]

It works great, though it can be a wee bit tricky with the URLs, and you may prefer to use a harder location, which avoids potential issues in indexed directories, where folks can get in a loop..

they go damn! Oh!

# send them exactly there!

Options +FollowSymlinks

RewriteEngine on

RewriteRule ^(.*)$ /comms/hardware/router/ [NC]

Sometimes you'll only want to deny access to most of the files in the directory, but allow access to maybe one or two files, or file types, easy..

deny with style!

# users can load only "special.zip", and the css and js files.

Options +FollowSymlinks

RewriteEngine On

RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !^(.+)\.css$

RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !^(.+)\.js$

RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !special.zip$

RewriteRule ^(.+)$ /chat/ [NC]

Here we take the whole thing a stage further. Users can access .css (stylesheet) and javascript files without problem, and also the file called "special.zip", but requests for any other filetypes are immediately redirected back up to the main "/chat/" directory. You can add as many types as you need. You could also bundle the filetypes into one line using | (or) syntax, though individual lines are perhaps clearer.

Here's what's currently cooking inside my /inc/ directory..

all-in-one control..

RewriteEngine on

Options +FollowSymlinks

# allow access with no restrictions to local machine at 192.168.1.3

RewriteCond %{REMOTE_ADDR} !192.168.1.3

# allow access to all .css and .js in sub-directories..

RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !\.css$

RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !\.js$

# allow access to the files inside img/, but not a directory listing..

RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !img/(.*)\.

# allow access to these particular files...

RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !comments.php$

RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !corzmail.php$

RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !digitrack.php$

RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !gd-verify.php$

RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !post-dumper.php$

RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !print.php$

RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !source-dump.php$

RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !textview.php$

RewriteRule ^(.*)$ / [R,nc,l]

Believe it or not, there are some webmasters who, rather than coming up with their own content will steal yours. Really! Even worse, they won't even bother to copy to their own server to serve it up, they'll just link to your content! no, it's true, in fact, it used to be incredibly common. These days most people like to prevent this sort of thing, and .htaccess is one of the best ways to do it.

This is one of those directives where the mileage variables are at their limits, but something like this works fine for me..

how DARE they!

Options +FollowSymlinks

# no hot-linking

RewriteEngine On

RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^$

RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^http://(www\.)?corz\.org/ [NC]

RewriteRule .*\.(gif|jpg|png)$
<!--
//<![CDATA[
<!
document.write("http://corz.org/img/hotlink.png [NC]")
//-->
// -->
// -->http://corz.org/img/hotlink.png [NC]
&lt;/p&gt; &lt;div&gt; &lt;a href="/img/hotlink.png" mce_href="/img/hotlink.png" title="(opens in a new window - apple-click (shift-click on peecees) for a new tab instead)"&gt;&lt;br /&gt; http://corz.org/img/hotlink.png&lt;/a&gt; [NC]&lt;br /&gt; &lt;/div&gt; &lt;p&gt;

You may see the last line broken into two, but it's all one line (all the directives on this page are). Let's have a wee look at what it does..

We begin by enabling the rewrite engine, as always.

The first RewriteCond line allows direct requests (not from other pages - an "empty referrer") to pass unmolested. The next line means; if the browser did send a referrer header, and the word "corz.org" is not in the domain part of it, then DO rewrite this request.

The all-important final RewriteRule line instructs mod_rewrite to rewrite all matched requests (anything without "corz.org" in its referrer) asking for gifs, jpegs, or pngs, to an alternative image. Mine says "no hotlinking!" You can see it in action here.

There are loads of ways you can write this rule. google for "hot-link protection" and get a whole heap. Simple is best. You could send a wee message instead, or direct them to some evil script, or something. These days, mine is a simple corz.org logo, which I think is rather clever.

I'm often asked how I prevent the "www" part showing up at my site, so I guess I should add something about that. Briefly, if someone types http://www.corz.org/ into their browser (or uses the www part for any link at corz.org) it is redirected to the plain, rather neat, http://corz.org/ version. This is very simple to achieve, like this..

beware the regular expression:

Options +FollowSymlinks

RewriteEngine on

RewriteCond %{http_host} ^www\.corz\.org [NC]

RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://corz.org/$1 [R=301,NC]

You don't need to be a genius to see what's going on here. There are other ways you could write this rule, but again, simple is best. Like most of the examples here, the above is pasted directly from my own main .htaccess file, so you can be sure it works perfectly. In fact, I recently updated it so that I could share rules between my dev mirror and live site without any .htaccess editing..

here's what I'm currently using:

Options +FollowSymlinks

RewriteEngine on

RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^www\.(.*) [NC]

RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://%1/$1 [R=301,NC,L]

If you are in the unfortunate position of having your sites living on a host that doesn't support multiple domains, you may be forced to roll your own with .htaccess and mod_rewrite. So long as your physical directory structure is well thought-out, this is fairly simple to achieve.

For example, let's say we have two domains, pointing at a single hosted root; domain-one.com and domain-two.com. In our web server root, we simply create a folder for each domain, perhaps one/, and two/ then in our main (root) .htaccess, rewrite all incoming requests, like this..

All requests NOT already rewritten into these folders, transparently rewrite..

#two domains served from one root..

RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} domain-one.com

RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !^/one

RewriteRule ^(.*)$ one/$1 [L]

RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} domain-two.com

RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !^two

RewriteRule ^(.*)$ two/$1 [L]

All requests for the host domain-one.com are rewritten (not R=redirected) to the one/ directory, so long as they haven't already been rewritten there (the second RewriteCond). Same story for domain-two.com. Note the inconsistency in the RewriteCond statement; !^/dir-name and !^dir-name should both work fine.

Also note, with such a simple domain & folder naming scheme, you could easily merge these two rule sets together. This would be unlikely in the real world though, which is why I left them separate; but still, worth noting.

Other general settings and php directives can also go in this root .htaccess file, though if you have any further rewrite you'd like to perform; short URL's, htm to php conversion and what-not; it's probably easier and clearer to do those inside the sub-directory's .htaccess files.

they simply add their country code to the end of the link, or you do..

Options +FollowSymlinks

RewriteEngine on

RewriteRule ^(.*)-fr$ http://www.google.com/translate_c?hl=fr&sl=en&u=http://corz.org/$1 [R,NC]

RewriteRule ^(.*)-de$ http://www.google.com/translate_c?hl=de&sl=en&u=http://corz.org/$1 [R,NC]

RewriteRule ^(.*)-es$ http://www.google.com/translate_c?hl=es&sl=en&u=http://corz.org/$1 [R,NC]

RewriteRule ^(.*)-it$ http://www.google.com/translate_c?hl=it&sl=en&u=http://corz.org/$1 [R,NC]

RewriteRule ^(.*)-pt$ http://www.google.com/translate_c?hl=pt&sl=en&u=http://corz.org/$1 [R,NC]

You can create your menu with its flags or whatever you like, and add the country code to end of the links.. Want to see this page in French?

Although it is very handy, and I've been using it here for a couple of years here at the org, for my international blog readers, all two of them, heh. Almost no one knows about it, mainly because I don't have any links . One day I'll probably do a wee toolbar with flags and what-not. Perhaps not. Trouble is, the Google translator stops translating after a certain amount of characters (which seems to be increasing, good), though these same rules could easily be applied to other translators, and if you find a good one, one that will translate a really huge document on-the-fly, do let me know!

If you wanted to be really clever, you could even perform some some kind of IP block check and present the correct version automatically, but that is outside the scope of this document. note: this may be undesirable for pages where technical commands are given (like this page) because the commands will also be translated. "RewriteEngine dessus" will almost certainly get you a 500 error page!

Remember, if you put these rules in the main server conf file (usually httpd.conf) rather than an .htaccess file, you'll need to use ^/... ... instead of ^... ... at the beginning of the RewriteRule line, in other words, add a slash.

If you are creating rules in sub-folders of your site, you need to read this.

You'll remember how rules in top folders apply to all the folders inside those folders too. we call this "inheritance". normally this just works. but if you start creating other rules inside subfolders you will, in effect, obliterate the rules already applying to that folder due to inheritance, or "decendancy", if you prefer. not all the rules, just the ones applying to that subfolder. a wee demonstration..

Let's say I have a rule in my main /.htaccess which redirected requests for files ending .htm to their .php equivalent, just like the example at the top of this very page. now, if for any reason I need to add some rewrite rules to my /osx/.htaccess file, the .htm >> .php redirection will no longer work for the /osx/ subfolder, I'll need to reinsert it, but with a crucial difference..

this works fine, site-wide, in my main .htaccess file

# main (top-level) .htaccess file..

# requests to file.htm goto file.php

Options +FollowSymlinks

RewriteEngine on

RewriteRule ^(.*)\.htm$ http://corz.org/$1.php [R=301,NC]

Here's my updated /osx/.htaccess file, with the .htm >> .php redirection rule reinserted..

but I'll need to reinsert the rules for it to work in this sub-folder

# /osx/.htaccess file..

Options +FollowSymlinks

RewriteEngine on

RewriteRule some rule that I need here

RewriteRule some other rule I need here

RewriteRule ^(.*)\.htm$ http://corz.org/osx/$1.php [R=301,NC]

Spot the difference in the subfolder rule, highlighted in red. you must add the current path to the new rule. now it works again, and all the osx/ subfolders will be covered by the new rule. if you remember this, you can go replicating rewrite rules all over the place.

If it's possible to put your entire site's rewrite rules into the main .htaccess file, and it probably is; do that, instead, like this..

it's a good idea to put all your rules in your main .htaccess file..

# root /.htaccess file..

Options +FollowSymlinks

RewriteEngine on

# .htm >> .php is now be covered by our main rule, there's no need to repeat it.

# But if we do need some /osx/-specific rule, we can do something like this..

RewriteRule ^osx/(.*)\.foo$ /osx/$1.bar [R=301,NC]

Note, no full URL (with domain) in the second example. Don't let this throw you; with or without is functionally identical, on most servers. Essentially, try it without the full URL first, and if that doesn't work, sigh, and add it - maybe on your next host!

The latter, simpler form is preferable, if only for its tremendous portability it offers - my live site, and my development mirror share the exact same .htaccess files - a highly desirable thing.

By the way, it perhaps doesn't go without saying that if you want to disable rewriting inside a particular subfolder, where it is enabled further up the tree, simply do:

handy for avatar folders, to allow hot-linking, etc..

RewriteEngine off

In short, mod_rewrite allows you to send browsers from anywhere to anywhere. You can create rules based not simply on the requested URL, but also on such things as IP address, browser agent (send old browsers to different pages, for instance), and even the time of day; the possibilities are practically limitless.

The ins-and outs of mod_rewrite syntax are topic for a much longer document than this, and if you fancy experimenting with more advanced rewriting rules, I urge you to check out the apache documentation.

If you have apache installed on your system, there will likely be a copy of the apache manual, right here, and the excellent mod_rewriting guide, lives right here. do check out the URL Rewriting Engine notes for the juicy syntax bits. That's where I got the cute quote for the top of the page, too.

(or

rewrite logging..

When things aren't working, you may want to enable rewrite logging. I'll assume you are testing these mod_rewrite directives on your development mirror, or similar setup, and can access the main httpd.conf file. If not, why not? Testing mod_rewrite rules on your live domain isn't exactly ideal, is it? Anyway, put this somewhere at the foot of your http.conf..

Expect large log files..

#

# ONLY FOR TESTING REWRITE RULES!!!!!

#

RewriteLog "/tmp/rewrite.log"

#RewriteLogLevel 9

RewriteLogLevel 5

Set the file location and logging level to suit your own requirements.

If your rule is causing your Apache to loop, load the page, immediately hit your browser's "STOP" button, and then restart Apache. All within a couple of seconds. Your rewrite log will be full of all your diagnostic information, and your server will carry on as before.

RewriteLogLevel 5 is very useful, I find.

Fatal Redirection

If you start messing around with 301 redirects [R=301], aka. "Permanently Redirected", and your rule isn't working, you could give yourself some serious headaches..

Once the browser has been redirected permanently to the wrong address, if you then go on to alter the wonky rule, your browser will still be redirected to the old address (because it's a browser thing), and you may even go on to fix, and then break the rule all over again without ever knowing it. Changes to 301 redirects can take a long time to show up in your browser.

Solution: restart your browser, or use a different one.

Better Solution: Use [R] instead of [R=301] while you are testing . When you are 100% certain the rule does exactly as it's expected to, then switch it to [R=301] for your live site.

debug-report.php

A php script to make your mod_rewrite life easier!

When things aren't working as you would expect, you probably won't have to enable rewrite logging to get the information you need. What's usually required is no more than a quick readout of all the current variables, $_GET array, and so on; so you can see exactly what happened to the request.

For another purpose, I long ago created debug.php, and later, finding all this information useful in chasing down wonky rewrites, created a "report" version, which rather than output to a file, spits the information straight back into your browser, as well as $_POST, $_SESSION, and $_SERVER arrays, special variables, like __FILE__, and much more.

Usage is simple; you make it your target page, so in a rule like this..

RewriteRule ^(.*)\.html$ /catch-all.php?var=$1