getting value from the url

osusano

i am just wondering how to get the value from the url like this http://www.test.com/osusano and it will display the value of the user with username osusano.. i am currently doing something like this http://www.test.com?uname=osusano

is there a way for me to make same as a bove without putting a folder of the username from the server to browsed?

thank you in advance.

AstroTeg

Yes, if you're using Apache as your web server. You can use mod_rewrite (assuming its been installed and enabled). All you have to do is setup an .htaccess file in the directory you want the rewrites to occur at and do something like:

RewriteEngine on
RewriteRule ^{([A-Za-z]+)(/?)$} index.php?uname=$1

I'm not sure of the accuracy of my rewrite rule there, but its probably close to what you'd need. Check out google and find the regular expression syntax that is used.

crosbystillsnas

RewriteEngine on
RewriteRule ^(.*)$	     index.php?uname=$1

though you'll have to do that consequently as all links to your page will be rewritten this way, i.e.
www.yourdomain.com/hello ---> index.php?uname=hello
www.yourdomain.com/index.php ---> index.php?uname=index.php

RewriteEngine on
RewriteRule ^rewrite/(.*)$	     index.php?uname=$1

www.yourdomain.com/rewrite/firstname ---> index.php?uname=firstname

AstroTeg

I think if this rewrite rule was rewriten to be a little more sensitive:

RewriteRule ^(.*)$

You wouldn't have to worry about setting up other rewrite rules work around the "catch all". Which is why the version I gave just looks for letters (upper and lower - you could use the [NC] attribute on the end if A-Za-z is too much typing). You can use this to capture the name, but if a period is found, the rule doesn't apply and Apache moves onto the next rule or then finds the file.

swr

If you can tolerate having a PHP script filename in the URL, there is a simpler method that doesn't involve mod_rewrite.

If you have a script here:

http://www.example.com/myscript.php

And you call it with this URL:

http://www.example.com/myscript.php/arg1/arg2

You will have "/arg1/arg2" in $_SERVER['PATH_INFO']. You can then explode it on the slash to split it into an array.

For some reason this seems to be not very well known, even though PATH_INFO has been part of the CGI specification forever.

osusano

so does this means i need to make a .htaccess from my server and define each username to .htaccess so that once the user access the site it will go redirect?

can i have a sample .htaccess pls i havent tried to use this thing

thank you..

just a sample for this http://www.sample.com/vher or http://www.sample.com/test

Weedpacket

Originally posted by osusano
so does this means i need to make a .htaccess from my server and define each username to .htaccess so that once the user access the site it will go redirect?

No, it would be a generic rule that takes http://www.test.com/whatever and rewrites it as http://www.test.com?uname=whatever (if you still want to use the same script).

AstroTeg

Originally posted by osusano
can i have a sample .htaccess pls i havent tried to use this thing

What crosbystillsnas and I have in my post you could use as a stand alone .htaccess file. But I'd highly recommend you search google (look for mod_rewrite or url rewrite) on this to find out how and why this all works so you have a better understanding of what is going on.

osusano

ok thank you for your replies.. ill just look on it at google later.. 🙂