Question

I’m using this:

RewriteRule ^(.+)/?$ index.php?slug=$1 [L]

to change what the user sees as:

example.com/hello/world

to what the server sees as:

example.com/index.php?slug=hello/world

But it doesn’t work. I know the .htaccess itself is working because I have tried other, simpler rules that I’ve used elsewhere ans they work fine. Is there something wrong with this one?

Thank you!

Answer 1

Don’t process the rule if the file or directory actually exists. This will prevent the rule from acting on index.php and causing a rewrite loop. It will also prevent it from affecting your static content (css, js, images).

RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteRule ^(.+)/?$ index.php?slug=$1 [L,QSA]

Note, per comments, [QSA] is added to ensure that the existing query string parameters are preserved across the rewrite.