mod-rewrite is an Apache module that allows changing of URLs. For example, if you have a website with a long complicated URL, you could [probably | possibly] simplify it by installing the mod-rewrite module and then creating appropriate rewrite rules.

Based on some quick browsing, it also allows you to host more than one web site under a single web hosting account. I think there are other ways to do that as well, like something called something like "virtual domains" or "virtual hosting" (or am I thinking of email servers?).

http://www.modrewrite.com/ seems like a good place to start -- lots of links to other sites.

Any unattributed quotes are from one of the forums at http://forum.modrewrite.com/, most probably from Brett.

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• AboutThesePages

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Notes

Just some tidbits of knowledge as I browse:

• The rewrite engine basically uses regular expressions to make changes
• I'm confused about whether the changed URL shows up in your browser's address bar or not
• Here's a simple example — redirecting gg.domain.com to domain.com/file.php?i=3&n=7:

RewriteEngine on 
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://www.domain.com/file.php?i=3&n=7 [R] 

• • Note the [R] -- don't know what that means (so far) and there are other letters used in a similar fashion.
    • "R is "redirect"
      
      

Without the R, the server attempts to display the "revised" content while maintaining the same URL that the user typed into the browser.

With the R, the browser will be able to see that the URL has been revised. I hope this makes sense!"

• • • "[L] after a RewriteRule? means "last rule", i.e. if this rule is applied, then don't apply any of the rules that follow."
• You can activate rewrite rules from more than one place, including a .htaccess file? and the apache configuration file (???) (/etc/httpd.conf?) unfortunately, you apparently cannot turn rewrite logging on / off in a .htaccess file

• Here's a simple set of rules starting logging:

RewriteEngine on 
RewriteLog "/usr/local/apache/logs/myrewrite.log" 
RewriteLogLevel 9 

• More examples

Contributors

• () RandyKramer - 07 Apr 2003
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