Simplifying URLs with mod_rewrite

marcnyc

Hello,
I hope I may ask some mod rewrite realted help.

I would like to make my blog URLs of the type:

http://www.myblog.com/blog/?author_name=USER_NAME_HERE/

into easier to remember and easier to type URLs such as:

http://www.myblog.com/blog/USER_NAME_HERE/

so that when a visitor types in the latter he is redirected to the former.

I have tried this but it doesn't work:
Redirect ^/blog/(.)$ http://www.myblog.com/blog/?author_name=%1 [R=301,L]
and this:
RewriteRule ^/blog/(.)» /blog/?author_name=$1

RyanJones

How about this in your .htaccess file?

RewriteEngine on 
RewriteRule ^blog/(.+)/$ http://www.myblog.com/blog/?author_name=$1 [R=301,L]

Example here:

http://www.standards.spiralmindsinc.com/Testing/PHPBuilder/Marcnyc10318239/blog/SomeNameHere/

Cheers,

Ryan Jones

marcnyc

Although that seems to be only a + away from what I have tried it doesn't work... I get a "not found" error, as if it is looking for that file/folder specifically...

RyanJones

marcnyc wrote:
Although that seems to be only a + away from what I have tried it doesn't work... I get a "not found" error, as if it is looking for that file/folder specifically...

Odd, works fine for me...

Did you change the ^blog/(.+)/$ so that it finds the blog folder relative to the current directory?

Cheers,

Ryan Jones

marcnyc

what's happening now is, I am forwarded to:

http://www.myblog.com/blog/?author_name=index.php

any idea why?

RyanJones

OK how about thiis:

RewriteEngine on 
RewriteRule ^blog/([a-zA-Z0-9_]+)/$ http://www.myblog.com/blog/?author_name=$1 [R=301,L]

The exctcode I now haveon the test page:

RewriteEngine on 
RewriteRule ^blog/([a-zA-Z0-9_]+)/$ http://www.standards.spiralmindsinc.com/Testing/PHPBuilder/Marcnyc10318239/index.php?author_name=$1 [R=301,L]

Just remember, make shure you get the relative directories correct 🙂

Cheers,

Ryan Jones

marcnyc

that ALMOST workd ;-)
I was getting a 404 error until I removed the last slash after the regex, so the working code I found to be this:

RewriteEngine on
RewriteRule ^blog/([a-zA-Z0-9_]+)$ http://www.myblog/blog/index.php?author_name=$1 [R=301,L]

Thanks for your help, I really appreciate your time...
Now my only doubt is, why would (.+) not work and ([a-zA-Z0-9_]+) did?