****online library question****

[fnbcprog]

I have coded a whole application for an online library and I was wondering if anyone knew of a shortcut to one thing....

1. How do you create a system where the user can put in a 5 digit number and have the document auto load from the url....

i.e.- On PCWorld.com they have the find.pcworld.com function where it is find.pcword.com/##### and that five digit number auto loads the document.......

Hope you guys can help me with this one....

[goldbug]

One way would be to set up an apache error document to point 404s at a PHP script you write, which in turn looks up the article by number in a database.

[fnbcprog]

I just found some information on a mod_rewrite module that will let you put specified information onto the end of an URL

i.e.- find.pcworld.com/05698

with the mod_rewrite function this would produce

find.pcworld.com/index.php?id=05698

Does anybody have any help or information on the mod_rewrite function.....

[weekender]

the problem with goldbugs' 404 solution is that it fills up your error log with 404's, which make it hard to see which links really are broken (i criticise, but this is how i used to do things!)

there is a mod_rewrite article at http://www.phpfreaks.com/tutorials/23/0.php

adam