Question

I’ve noticed that on several web pages e.g. StackOverflow instead of stackoverflow.com/questions/ask.php they have stackoverflow.com/questions/ask.

How is this done?

Answer 1

If I understand your question right, you just want to have file-names|tags|titles|categories after the last slash to route semantically to the according file or a hidden path;

If so, you will gain this dependent on the possibilities you have:

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A) Do you have access to httpd.conf on your Server?

Look out for the DirectoryIndex;

OR

B) If you are not able to edit httpd.conf, do you have access to .htaccess on your server?

Look out if DirectoryIndex is already set anywhere, in most cases it won’t; so you want to create your own new entry;

---

TODO:
Now define the DirectoryIndex by letting this reserved word be followed by the filenames you want to have
been routed to another filename or path/filename

GODO:

1. DirectoryIndex
2. [SPACE]
3. file-name.ending OR file-name OR tag OR title-with-some-words-bond-together
4. [SPACE]
5. repeat step 3 and 4 until you have a set of catchers to be caught …
6. at least: add the target of your set by spending a path

DOJO:

• RELOAD your server
• OR
• RESTART if necessary

EXAM:

• DirectoryIndex index.html index.htm index.pl index.asp index.jsp index /routed/to-path_of/index.php
• DirectoryIndex ask ask.php

MOJO:

This is a quant of what you can achieve; Look out for pretty-printing URL’s, apache mod-rewrite, DirectoryIndex, URI URL hiding, domain forwarding and similar keys you can google for.

In most cases it would have been realized by well-known BLOG/CMS-SoftWare like WordPress, JOOMLA, DruPal, etc. via mod-rewrite, as this is the controlled and preset way if necessary rights are given.

Personally i would recommend to use the simple format of setting DirectoryIndex via .htaccess, as i explained before, because if you realize your own magic-words you may want to write a script that checks for hash-changes, sniffs history and responds accordingly to server-errors.