[Resolved] Accessing user conent via URL

[BigE]

This might not be PHP specific, but if there is a php solution that would be great.

I have a site where users can create a profile of goods they are selling. Each user creates an ID for themselves. I would like for a user to be able to give out my site address with their user name that will automatically show their profile.

For example I'd like user Joe to be able to give out http://www.mysite.com/Joe and have his profile display.

I know I could do this by creating re-direction files and/or directories when creating the account, but then I have security issues and a directory full of user re-direction files.

I know I could also do this if the UserID was a parameter like http://www.mysite.com/main.php?User=Joe

Is there a better way of using the http://www.mysite.com/Joe format and accomplish what I am after?

Regards,

E

[devinemke]

if you use Apache then check out mod_rewrite.

[BigE]

Originally posted by devinemke
if you use Apache then check out mod_rewrite.

Thanks, this sounds like exactly what I need. I figured out how to put this into an .htaccess file, but the syntax has me pretty confused. I basically want to take

http://www.mysite.com/Joe

and rewrite it as

http://www.mysite.com/browse.php?UserID=Joe

If anyone with experience using mod_rewrite can bail me out here I'd buy many virtual beers!

Regards,

E