Question

Here’s my .htaccess

RewriteEngine on
RewriteRule .* index.php?url=$0 [L]

And my index.php file:

<?php
var_dump($_GET);

When I go to mysite/cat I get:

array
  'url' => string 'index.php' (length=9)

Which suggests that it redirects twice, and index.php is getting stuffed into url. I thought [L] was supposed to prevent that?

Answer 1

The Lflag does prevent further RewriteRules from being applied for the current request, but if an external redirect occurs then the entire set of rules will be re-entered from the top again regardless.