Question

I need to rewrite URL like http://www.example.com/search.php?abc
to http://www.example.com/abc
using the rules below, but it doesn’t work, why doesn’t it match?

RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} ^search.php
RewriteRule ^search.php?q=([-0-9a-zA-Z]+) $1

Answer 1

• %{REQUEST_URI} always has a / at the start. so RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} ^search.php will never match.

• RewriteRule Directive

  Pattern is a perl compatible regular expression. On the first RewriteRule it is applied to the (%-decoded) URL-path of the request; subsequent patterns are applied to the output of the last matched RewriteRule.

• ? means match for one or none of previous character when not escaped. So your ^search.php?q=... would match:

  • search.phpq=...
  • search.phq=...

from PCRE man pages

? extends the meaning of (
also 0 or 1 quantifier
also quantifier minimizer

You will have to do this:

Options +FollowSymLinks
RewriteEngine On

RewriteCond %{ENV:REDIRECT_STATUS} 200
RewriteRule ^ - [L]

RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-l
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} ^/([\w]+)/?$ [NC]
RewriteRule ^ search.php?q=%1 [L,QSA]

RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} ^/search.php [NC]
RewriteCond %{QUERY_STRING} ^q=([\w\d-]+)$ [NC]
RewriteRule ^ /%1? [L,R=301]

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• Flag NC (nocase) : flag_nc ^{Apache Docs}
• Flag L (last)         : flag_l ^{Apache Docs}