Question

I’ve looked at many examples here and all over the internet, but I can’t seem to find an answer I understand, or that accurately solves my problem. I’m looking to implement a mod_rewrite directive in an .htaccess file that renames a folder to another name but does not show the name in the url bar.

For example (the user clicks a link that directs them to):

theSite.com/folder1/folder2/folder3/      

I want them to see (same as above)

theSite.com/folder1/folder2/folder3/ 

But I want the browser to silently function in this directory

theSite.com/folder1/some_other_folder/folder3/ 

I am a PHP developer, writing my first web application. I can configure apache, PHP, mysql and use them like a pro. I’m sorry, but I don’t understand the syntax for mod_rewrite. I can’t seem to grasp it despite looking at many tutorials as I would need to ask questions before I could move onto the next concept. Thank you for your patience.

Answer 1

Your case is pretty run-of-the-mill. You just need to match the static string, plus a (.*) to match everything that follows it and store it into $1, then substitue some_other_folder.

The [L] flag (and absence of the [R] flag) instructs Apache to rewrite internally without redirecting the browser, and to stop here without matching further rules.

RewriteEngine On
RewriteRule ^folder1/folder2/folder3(.*)$ folder1/some_other_folder/folder3$1 [L]

If folder3 itself is part of the “dynamic” portion, that is, anything after folder2 should be silently rewritten into some_other_folder, leave folder3 out of the rule and just capture everything that follows folder2 into $1.

RewriteEngine On
RewriteRule ^folder1/folder2/(.*)$ folder1/some_other_folder/$1 [L]