Question

I have a PHP page with querystring:

http://project.dev/?a=b&c=d

As you know, I can access the querystring with $_GET superglobal array:

print_r($_GET);
/*
Array
(
    [a] => b
    [c] => d
)
*/

I want to remove questionmark from querystring with Apache and htaccess, so when a user see my website with this address:

http://project.dev/a=b&c=d

It will be identical to this address:

http://project.dev/?a=b&c=d

and I can access the querystring as before: with $_GET superglobal array.

Some Important Notes:

1. I don’t want to redirect user from URL without question mark to the URL with question mark.

2. I have both GET and POST requests to this page.

3. The querystring can have questionmark ? itself, for example:
   http://project.dev/?a=b&c=d?x=y.

4. I want the addresses with question mark, automatically redirect to the one without question mark. For example when a user come to my site with this address:
   http://project.dev/?a=b&c=d
   I want to redirect user to this address:
   http://project.dev/a=b&c=d.

5. My website has only one page: index.php. Without any subfolders.

How can I do this in htaccess?

Answer 1

I have both GET and POST requests to this page.

This may be an issue, since the request body doesn’t get included after a redirect. So if you’ve POSTed a request that has GET style params in the query string, the redirect will lose the POST params.

The rules you want will probably look something like this:

# Redirects query string to non-query string

RewriteCond %{THE_REQUEST} ^(GET|HEAD)\ /\?([^\ ]+)
RewriteRule ^ /%2? [L,R,NE]

# And back

RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} .=.
RewriteRule ^/?(.*)$ /?$1 [L]

If you want a 301 redirect, replace the R flag in the first rule with R=301. The NE flag is needed s othat any encoded ? in the query string shows up as %3F instead of the % getting encoded itself. You can alternatively try replacing RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} .=. with -f and -d checks:

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