dynamic (smart) redirect

[Cailean]

The filestructure on the site I'm working on is:

root
    misc1
    misc2
    misc3
    misc4
    groups
         group1
         group2
         group3
         group4
    misc5

I'd like to be able to use a redirect so that users can enter www.root.com/group2 and be sent to www.root.com/groups/group2 without having to duplicate the group2 folder in the root with a redirect inside...

Possible?

I have thought about a relatively simple is_dir() solution in the index file of the root but then I realized that php will never get that far... would it work to put something similar in a custom 404 file? Hack off the end of the url after the root and search for it?

[rehfeld]

i beleive what your looking for is apaches mod_rewrite

you can easily make any any url map to any file.

for example

RewriteEngine On
RewriteRule ^group2/?$ groups/group2/script.php

the user will not be redirected, everything happens internally

for example
example.org/group2

would actually call the file at
example.org/groups/group2/script.php

google for mod_rewrite

[Cailean]

Thnkas for the help, but I'm not sure it's what I need... I'd prefer not to have to hard code the URLs plus I don't have easy access to the apache config.

What I'd like is:
if url is not found as is, check if it exists in the groups directory... if it does, redirect there...

[rehfeld]

well the example i gave was very simple. the point is mod_rewrite is the tool to use for stuff like this.

you can use mod_rewrite in .htaccess files too.

you dont have to hardcode every url, mod rewrite supports regular expressions and has the ability to capture parenthesized matches and then use them as backreferences

this would check if the current requested url exists or not, if not, it would do an external redirect into the group2 folder. im not sure how to check if the url its redirecting to exists or not, but i know it can be done. you can look at the manual, prob look at subrequests.

this would go in a .htaccess in your groups dir

RewriteEngine on
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !-d
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !-f
RewriteRule (.*) http://%{SERVER_NAME}/groups/group2/$1 [R] # R means external redirect

if using the above, you would want to put this in your group2 directory to prevent an endless redirection loop

RewriteEngine off

and an alternative, is you could do an INTERNAL rewrite for failing urls to a php script which would handle things. your prob much more comfortable w/ php, and it could make it much easier for you

RewriteEngine on
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !-d
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !-f
RewriteRule .* groups_file_handler.php #internal rewrite

<?php

$request = $_SERVER['REQUEST_URI'];
// parse it
// check if the file exists in some other directory

if (yes) {
    header('Location: other location');
} else {
    header(); // send 404 not found, or do something else
}


?>