mod_rewrite Cheat Sheet (V2)

I do tech support for a webhosting company. I use your mod_rewrite cheat sheets all the time.

#2, David Maas, United States, 9 July 2008. Reply to this.

This is a great reference guide. These cheat sheets do save our time and brain.. Have printed it out and its pretty useful! Thx very much!

#4, Bob, Unknown, 21 July 2008. Reply to this.

Thanks for the cheat sheet Dave. The flag list is particularly helpful. I started off with an example like your "Nice Looking URLs" in working with a recent site. I think many real world situations are going to need something more complex, or take the seo hit to put "category" and "page" in the url to key off of in a one line rewrite.

This example rewrites the urls for http://www.aslaninteractive.com

RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME}.cfm -f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteRule ^portfolio/([a-zA-Z0-9-_]+)$ /portfolio/$1.cfm [PT,L]
RewriteRule ^services/([a-zA-Z0-9-_]+)$ /services/$1.cfm [PT,L]
RewriteRule ^success_stories/([a-zA-Z0-9-_]+)$ /success_stories/$1.cfm [PT,L]
RewriteRule ^/?([a-zA-Z0-9-_]+)$ $1.cfm [PT,L]

#8, Matt MacDougall, Unknown, 10 August 2008. Reply to this.

Hi,

Excellent tutorial. I will refer people to your site.

#10, Mezbaur Rahman, United Kingdom, 14 August 2008. Reply to this.

Damm Good. It gives quick insight . Very Very Helpfull .

#12, Dilip Kumar, United States, 5 September 2008. Reply to this.

Hey I like the new additions to the cheat-sheet... It somewhat inspired me to document the various mod_rewrite variables at http://www.askapache.com/htaccess/mod_rewrite-variables-cheatsheet.html

I've found it really helpful while I'm messing with .htaccess stuff- I keep a printed copy on my desk!

#14, AskApache, United States, 11 October 2008. Reply to this.

Very educative, indeed! I'm currently working on a script and I found this tutorial/guide very useful.

#16, Mexabet, Australia, 21 October 2008. Reply to this.

Useful. Thanks

#18, guatejon, Honduras, 6 November 2008. Reply to this.

This helped me a lot to crack the nut :)
thanks a lot my dear friend

keep the good work moving...

thnx again

#20, samil, Unknown, 14 November 2008. Reply to this.

Thank You very much. It's not easy for me, to understand the rewrite rules. But they are necessary for a webworker.

#22, Gerd-E., Germany, 27 November 2008. Reply to this.

Amazing effort! I am wondering how to use mod_rewrite with Rails mongrel?
Thanks!

#24, Alan Murary, Unknown, 11 December 2008. Reply to this.

Thank you very much for this valuable sheet.

Regards.

#26, Maksin, Unknown, 24 December 2008. Reply to this.

Thank you very much for this very helpful cheat sheets!

#28, Saeed, Unknown, 12 January 2009. Reply to this.

this example not work <IfModule mod_rewrite.c>
RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteRule ^/index.html$ index.html [C]
RewriteRule . /index.php [L]
</IfModule>
<IfModule mod_security.c>
<Files async-upload.php>
SecFilterEngine Off
SecFilterScanPOST Off
</Files>
</IfModule>

#30, Luiss, colombia, 14 January 2009. Reply to this.

Hi,

I am using mod_rewrite in my web site and getting following issue.

My root directory path
/xxx/yyy/public_html/

All my files website present in ?official? folder (i-e) /xxx/yyy/public_html/official/

.htaccess file present in root directory (i-e) /xxx/yyy/public_html/

Script present in .htaccess file.

RewriteEngine On # Turn on the rewriting engine

RewriteRule ^official/browse/([A-Za-z0-9-]+)/([A-Za-z0-9-]+)/?$ official/index.php?do=browse&s=$1&ss=$2 [NC,L] # Process browse requests

RewriteRule ^official/browse/([A-Za-z0-9-]+)/?$ official/index.php?do=browse&s=$1 [NC,L] # Process browse requests
RewriteRule ^official/([A-Za-z-]+)/?$ official/index.php?do=$1 [NC,L] # Process product requests

Script present in browse.php

<a href="index.php?do=browse&s=<?php echo $sect['id']; ?>&ss=<?php echo $ssect['id']; ?>"><strong><?php echo $ssect['subname']; ?></strong></a>

My issue

At first visit of browse page it works fine

(i-e) http://www.mydomain.net/official/browse/1/1/

If I click another section in browse page, it shows ?The page cannot be found? because of /browse/1/2/ added after /browse/1/1/

(i-e) http://www.mydomain.net/official/browse/1/1/browse/1/2/

Please give your suggestion to over come this problem and waiting for your valuable reply.

Thanks in advance.

Manikandan.S

#32, Manikandan, Unknown, 29 January 2009. Reply to this.

hey, this cheat is so awesome. many thanks!

#34, hal?, turkey, 14 February 2009. Reply to this.

very good guia

#36, Bilaz, Brazil, 1 March 2009. Reply to this.

Hey! this help me so much ! tanks!

#38, Vini, Brazil, 4 March 2009. Reply to this.

this helped me a lot. thanks.

#40, web dizayn, Unknown, 13 March 2009. Reply to this.

Hej Thank you for your great work. This will help me alot.. Printed on A3+ :)

#42, Michael, Kosovo, 2 April 2009. Reply to this.

Nice! Glad you put it into a nice printable form. Will have to get this laminated.

#44, Tim Sabulis, Unknown, 14 April 2009. Reply to this.

Good resource!

#46, Martin, Uruguay, 18 May 2009. Reply to this.

Great, i`m still working on a htaccess file. Now i can work faster. I`m a beginner with mod rewrite but i`m geting better.

#48, Auspuff, Germany, 8 June 2009. Reply to this.

Hey, Thank you very much for this very helpful info!

#50, Kubotan, Unknown, 29 June 2009. Reply to this.

This is awesome, I just downloaded you regular Expression sheet. These are very helpful!

#52, Dwayne, Shasta Lake CA, 21 July 2009. Reply to this.

Amazing! thanks a lot for this guide. Very helpfull, good work.

#54, Haarentfernung, Germany, 25 July 2009. Reply to this.

This is an excellent overview but I'd like to make just a couple of recommendations:

1. The No Case flag should RARELY be used in a RewriteRule - it's purpose is to match case INsensitive characters such as those in the {HTTP_HOST}. If they're used in a RewriteRule to capture in an Apache $n variable, the receiving script must then convert the case to be usable. Think about WHO is creating the URI for the mod_rewrite to convert and ask WHY create a LOT more work for yourself.

2. The Last flag ... and the start anchor difference in the two versions of Apache (^/ for Apache 1.x, ^ for Apache 2.x, ^/? for both). You've shown only Apache 2's version with no directions for change for Apache 1.x.

If you ever feel the need to go to a second page, examples would help people learn a bit more about how these code snippets are used. I have a few at the bottom of the horribly long tutorial at http://datakoncepts.com/seo.

#56, DK, New Zealand, 4 August 2009. Reply to this.

I think mod rewrite is really complecated. Thanks for this article.

#58, haister, Unknown, 13 August 2009. Reply to this.

Great work! Very nice site.

#60, Geberstange, Germany, 26 August 2009. Reply to this.

Thank you. It's not easy for me, to understand the rewrite rules. But they are necessary for a webworker.
cu

#62, Chris Trick, Germany, 4 September 2009. Reply to this.

Hi,
The mod rewrite rule works perfectly. The page redirect by getting the variable and uses it right. but it does not pint the actual url in address bar

http://www.divinequran.com/koran/1-Al-Fatiha.html

It has to display the above url in the address bar, Instead of it displays the rewrite code as it is. I have used option L but it doesnot works.

#64, mathguy, India, 28 September 2009. Reply to this.

Super brilliant reference book! With the help of the "cheat sheet" can I save my various data faster. The best example is the "flag list"
Thanks for the great cheat sheet, Dave!
cu

#66, Andreas, Unknown, 7 October 2009. Reply to this.

This is one of the best mod rewrite cheat sheets I've found.

#68, Cesc Fabregas, Australia, 25 October 2009. Reply to this.

This is a great reference guide. These cheat sheets do save our time and brain.. Have printed it out and its pretty useful! Thx very much!

#70, Fussmatten, Germany, 27 October 2009. Reply to this.

Hi guys,

I'm a bit stuck... I'm moving articles that were published using a custom CMS and contained capitalized links to running wordpress as CMS.

Now WP doesn't allow capitalization in links, but there are links all over the net pointing to my articles.

Is there a rewrite rule that enable me to say ignore the case of any link coming in to the directory /articles and make it all lower case?

Can I also include to ignore the ending, ie .html, .php, ect...

Thanks for your help!

Veit

#72, Veit, Australia, 20 November 2009. Reply to this.

Thanks a lot for this guide.

#74, Roman, Germany, 8 December 2009. Reply to this.

Thank for sharing this excellent mod_rewrite guide

#76, Angelreisen, Germany, 23 December 2009. Reply to this.

Really useful stuff.

Cool and handy rewrite cheat sheet.

Thank you.

#78, wiserx, 24 December 2009. Reply to this.

Mod rewrite is a very difticult task. These sheets helps much.

#80, Kreditvergleich Wissen, Germany, 19 January 2010. Reply to this.

Please give your suggestion to over come this problem and waiting for your valuable reply.
Thank you

#82, Wärmepumpe, Germany, 7 February 2010. Reply to this.

I am running a blog site that was converted over from a static html site. I have an htaccess file in place to 1) rewrite posts, 2) redirect old pages to new pages.

My problem is that everything works fine except for simply redirecting www.mydomain.com/index.html to www.mydomain.com/

Here is what my htaccess file looks like, can you help me fix it? I wonder if it has something to do with the first rewrite rule for index.php?

<IfModule mod_rewrite.c>
RewriteEngine On
RewriteBase /
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteRule . /index.php [L]
</IfModule>

RewriteRule ^index\.html$ http://www.mydomain.com/ [R,L] - This is the one that does not work
RewriteRule ^page1\.html$ http://www.mydomain.com/page1/ [R,L]
RewriteRule ^page2\.html$ http://www.mydomain.com/ [R,L]
RewriteRule ^page3\.html$ http://www.mydomain.com/page3/ [R,L]
RewriteRule ^page4\.html$ http://www.mydomain.com/page4/ [R,L]
RewriteRule ^page5\.html$ http://www.mydomain.com/page5/ [R,L]

#84, Atlanta Web Design, 8 February 2010. Reply to this.

mod_rewrite - use this very often

#86, fotografia ?lubna Katowice, poland, 20 February 2010. Reply to this.

Use this in my site. Very nice

#88, fotografia ?lubna, poland, 20 February 2010. Reply to this.

Congratulations!!!

#90, Acompanhantes em BH, Brasil, 21 February 2010. Reply to this.

Thank u so much, great ide. cool ;)

#92, aangbiz, 25 February 2010. Reply to this.

i agree.. great place!

#94, fotograf ?lubny Kraków, pol, 15 March 2010. Reply to this.

good idea, i think my seo blog are now better with this cheat

#96, maidtool, 20 March 2010. Reply to this.

Very educative, indeed! I'm currently working on a script and I found this tutorial/guide very useful.

#98, SEO, Belgium, 5 May 2010. Reply to this.

Maybe there should be a one-click link to the image so that we can skip the "you are downloading a file, well done" page? Or perhaps send the MIME (assuming that's the problem here) header so that the download could be opened in the browser instead of a "what do you want to do with it" dialogue. This would work maybe?

#100, printplace, UK, 20 May 2010. Reply to this.

Hi, I am working on the rewritemap and rewriterule for my website. actually requirement is like i have one website whose address is http://www.myside1.com now since i am going to retire this website so i need to redirect most of the pages to new website. i want to use map file for this. i have created this mapping file where i want to keep maping like /folder1/page1.html http://newwebsite.com/content/view/hello.html in this way i want to use the redirection. i dont want to hardcode the each redirect rule. I can have /folder2/page1.html also. Could you please help me to have the correct rule.

#102, Himanshu, India, 9 July 2010. Reply to this.

Nice work, like your other cheat sheets.
Though I'm a little bit confused with this one.

#104, brennstoffe, Austria, 27 July 2010. Reply to this.

I have a windows server and use appserv and had a heck of a time figuring out mod rewrite.

#106, deleted, usa, 9 August 2010. Reply to this.

Mod rewrite is a very interesting theme for me. I will look through your other article to get more information. Thank by now

#108, deleted, Germany, 1 September 2010. Reply to this.

This is a great reference guide. These cheat sheets do save our time and brain.. Have printed it out and its pretty useful! Thx very much!

#110, Baufinanzierung, 13 October 2010. Reply to this.

Hi everyone,

Dave thanks for this hints, I look up a solution for one “robots.txt” problem, mean your following would function:
# domain.com/robots.txt to domain.com/new_robots.txt
RewriteRule ^robots.txt$ new_robots.txt [R,NC,L]

???

#112, Andre Behncke, Germany, 16 October 2010. Reply to this.

@Andre Behncke, Achim Detjen

I have this in .htaccess

RewriteCond %{http_host} ^www.xyz.de
RewriteRule ^robots.txt$ /xyz_robots.txt [L]

I separated also 2 of domain without vhost only with a browser sniffing (browser switch).

@Dave
many thanks for helpful hints

#114, Autolackierer, Germany, 26 October 2010. Reply to this.

I am migrating a domain to a new website:

I need to point: http://news.flightmapping.com/

anyone got any ideas how....

http://www.flightmapping.com/?page_id=16426

Help much appreciated

Miranda

#116, Miranda de Freston, UK, 3 March 2011. Reply to this.

hi. I you can simple change your whole website theme through just this rewrite rule
by this
RewriteCond %{http_host} ^([^.]+)\.test.com [NC]
RewriteRule ^(images|css)/(.+)$ themes/2/$1/$2 [L]
for more info you can visit this
http://developer99.blogspot.com/2011/07/changing-your-website-theme-thorugh.html

#118, developer99, Pakistan, 26 July 2011. Reply to this.

Thanks for sharing this cheat sheet. It´s just i was searching for.
Very useful!!

#120, pingu, spain, 12 August 2011. Reply to this.

This is awesome, and it was really glad to google this cheat sheet. I'm novice for htaccess and now have some knowlage about htacess as well as mod_rewrite. Keep posting

Thanks

#122, Bandarawela, Sri Lanka, 22 March 2012. Reply to this.

This Mod_rewrite cheat sheet has been very instrumental in helping me to learn how to make my web pages search engine friendly.

#124, Justin, Thailand, 27 May 2012. Reply to this.

Thanks for the sheet. Really handy item. I am hoping someone can help me here, I've spent days on this and still can't a) get an answer b) find a solution.
Options +FollowSymLinks
RewriteEngine on
rewritecond %{http_host} ^localhost

RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} /jw-ver3/testurl/url [NC]
RewriteRule testurl/url url1.htm [DPI,L]
Works first time and I get the proper url
http://localhost/jw-ver3/testurl/url1but clicking again produces http://localhost/jw-ver3/testurl/testurl/url1 and ad infinitum...

I've literally spent days trying to find an answer on the net, I've found people with the same problem but no answer. I've installed apache 2.2.22 as well and tried the DPI flag but nothing works.

I tried the simple example on your cheat sheet - same problem (RewriteRule ^([A-Za-z0-9-]+)/?$ url1.htm [DPI,L])
I'm quickly losing the will to live with this one.

#128, Jim Johnstone, UK, 30 April 2013. Reply to this.

@jim - i think.... the rule is being applied recursively because you've ommitted the carat ^testurl which says 'match testurl when it occurs at the beginning of the string'.

Try adding a ^ like so:

RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} /jw-ver3/testurl/url [NC]
RewriteRule ^testurl/url url1.htm [DPI,L]

#130, Tim Osborn, Australia, 15 May 2013. Reply to this.