Question

This is driving me mad. I’m trying to use .htaccess to redirect a subfolder (that doesn’t exist) to the index page, using the subfolder name as the variable. ie:

http://www.website.com/john/

redirects to:

http://www.website.com/index.php?name=john

I’ve tried this (and various others) with no luck:

Options +FollowSymLinks
RewriteEngine On
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ index.php?name=$1

Answer 1

Here is an example, how you can do this:

# turn mod_rewrite engine on
RewriteEngine On

# rewrite a physical existing file or folder
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f [OR]
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d

# allow things that are certainly necessary
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} "/layout/" [OR]
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} "/javascript/"

# rewrite rules
RewriteRule .* - [L]
RewriteRule (.*) index.php?_route=$1 [QSA]

This one also denies access to folders you don’t want to have public.