Question

I have the following code in my .htaccess.

RewriteEngine On
RewriteRule ^/(\w+)/?$ /?user=$1

I’m trying to rewrite
http://domain.com/?user=username into http://domain.com/username. Unfortunately this code doesn’t rewrite anything. Please help

Note:
I checked phpinfo() and mod_rewrite is loaded.

Update

I need to get username from url like http://facebook.com/username. But this code rewrites every folder in root folder, so my /css folder become http://domain.com/css/?u=common. How to allow this code works only for http://domain.com/index.php

Answer 1

The mistake you are doing is the use of / in the beginning of the line ^/(\w+)/?$

rewrite rules strips off the / from the beginning of the pattern to be matched in .htaccess and directory context.

Try doing this:

RewriteEngine On
RewriteRule ^(\w+)/?$ /?user=$1

From RewriteRule Directive ^docs :

What is matched?

In VirtualHost context, The Pattern will initially be matched against the part of the URL after the hostname and port, and before the query string (e.g. “/app1/index.html”).

In Directory and htaccess context, the Pattern will initially be matched against the filesystem path, after removing the prefix that lead the server to the current RewriteRule (e.g. “app1/index.html” or “index.html” depending on where the directives are defined).

If you wish to match against the hostname, port, or query string, use a RewriteCond with the %{HTTP_HOST}, %{SERVER_PORT}, or %{QUERY_STRING} variables respectively.

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Edit: Answer updated as per OP’s request:
Add this :

RewriteEngine On

#do nothig if URL is trying to access the folder CSS.
RewriteRule *css/* - [L]

#checks where the URL is a valid file/folder.
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteRule ^(\w+)/?$ /?user=$1