Question

I’m playing with apache rewrite_mod (Apache/2.2.17 Win32) and encounter very weird behave of rewriteRule.

My script primarily rewrite infinite filter parameters named f1 .. f<infinity> from nice url and in loop adding them as query variables, add path as query, and page number.

It works flawlessly, but if I add one another rule (last rule in script)

RewriteRule   ^(.+)\.html$                       /index.php?path=$1.html [QSA]

which is for another cases, it change execution of rewriterule at start of script.

Input URL:

http://testing.loc/some/thing/index0-f1-nice-cars-f2-planes-f3-karts-f4-bike.html

Expected result in PHP after all rewrites:

$_SERVER[QUERY_STRING] => path=some/thing/&page=0&f1=nice-cars&f2=planes&f3=karts&f4=bike
$_SERVER[SCRIPT_NAME] => /index.php

Script look like this (next part is flawlessly functional):

# from: some/thing/index0-f1-nice-cars-f2-planes-f3-karts-f4-bike.html
# to:   some/thing/index0.html?f=-f1-nice-cars-f2-planes-f3-karts-f4-bike

RewriteRule   ^(.*/?index[0-9]*)((?:-f[0-9]+-.+?)+)\.html$   /$1.html?f=$2 [QSA]

# from: some/thing/index0.html?f=-f1-nice-cars-f2-planes-f3-karts-f4-bike
# to    index.php?path=some/thing/&page=0&f=-f1-nice-cars-f2-planes-f3-karts-f4-bike

#              (   $1   )     (  $2  )
RewriteRule   ^(.+/{0,1})index([0-9]*)\.html$    /index.php?path=$1&page=$2 [QSA]

# while in f is something like "f1-nice-cars" (for example)
# remove "f1-nice-cars" from f and add as query "f1=nice-cars"

#                              (%1)    (   %2  ) ( %3)(       %4       )
RewriteCond   %{QUERY_STRING} ^(.*)&f=-(f[0-9]+)-(.+?)((?:-f[0-9]+-.+)*)$ 
RewriteRule   ^index\.php$                       /index.php?%1&%2=%3&f=%4 [L]

# remove empty "f=" from query

RewriteCond   %{QUERY_STRING} ^(.*)&f=$ 
RewriteRule   ^index\.php$                       /index.php?%1

here, after rules is url in shape:

index.php?path=some/thing/&page=0&f1=nice-cars&f2=planes&f3=karts&f4=bike

Without next rule in script is everything perfectly functional. But if I add it, this rule itself do nothing, but rewrite_mod add something more to subtitution at start of script.

# rewrite rule for other paths without filters

RewriteRule   ^(.+)\.html$                       /index.php?path=$1.html [QSA]

Actually after run all script result is:

index.php?path=/some/thing/index0.html/some/thing/index0&f1=nice-cars&f2=planes&f3=karts&f4=bike

Answer 1

I found resolution of this problem.
When 2 rules match URL at one pass of .htaccess, then apache rewrite_mod use method “add path info postfix” (its something like bug or feature), which ruin path of request. So when I added flag [L] to that 2 rules, result is OK.

I thinked that apache pass .htaccess sequentially and does not matter on next rules…