Tidy URL's

kbc1

Hi all

I have searched the eather for tutorials and examples of code, to which I keep finding the same thing over and over which are examples of how to create mod_rewrite in the .htaccess file of a site which secretly redirect the user to productdetails.php if they type products/ in the address bar:

RewriteRule ^products/$ /productdetails.php

This is all good an well, but I really need to understand how the PHP page deals with the data that needs to be displayed on screen.

I have always created a link in a page as such 'productdetails.php?prodid=1' and this in turn is displayed across the address bar at the top and the page goes and gets the data from the database. I understand that the point of tidy urls is to do away with this dymanic link and replace with products/1/ but its totally confusing to me from the PHP side on how to achieve this.

Do I have 1 php page that builds my whole site? If so, how the hell do i display my links to sub sections? Can someone direct me to a really useful tutorial or example snippets of code to help me understand how I go about achieving this?

Cheers
A very confused individual

leatherback

THat is done with mod_rewrite .. Which is why you keep finding tutorials on that!

The mod_rewrite translates:
/products/1
to products.php?pid=1

In PhP you would write something like
$id=$_GET[pid];

and run your query with that.

Incase of subdirs: You can have a modrewrite that rewrites any directory to :
index.php?page=anydirectory
and use php to search your database

kbc1

I do understand how to rewrite a rule to redirect a specific path/to/file as discussed, but it's the structure of the site itself that I am confused with.

Do you only have one page (index.php) that does ALL the work running multiple queries depending on what is passed via the URL or do you build your individual wep pages and include them using massive switch statements depending on whats being passed along the URL?

Its this logic that I need to understand I guess.

leatherback

IF you have individual pages throughout your site, you have no need for tiody urls: They are already tidy.

Only when you start retrieving information from e.g., a database, you might need to rewrite. Then I would go for a processing page per page type.

e.g.,:
Articles might have one process page
Forum might have one processing page

You could however opt for having one massive page. But you would not normally do that without tidu URLs, now would you?

Weedpacket

That's the part you need to decide for yourself. The point of rewriting URLs is that the format of the URL has nothing to do with the structure of the filesystem (URLs are not filenames); meaning that you can design the architecture of the web site in whatever method works best, without the URLs being an issue.

kbc1

Only when you start retrieving information from e.g., a database, you might need to rewrite. Then I would go for a processing page per page type.

My pages do retrieve data from the database but obviously create urls with

?pid=1&catid=2

So your suggestion would be for every section of my site i.e. news, product details, product categories etc I should still have one page that has its own queries getting the data and then use a mod_rewrite to change the URL's of those pages?

Cheers

leatherback

kbc1 wrote:
So your suggestion would be for every section of my site i.e. news, product details, product categories etc I should still have one page that has its own queries getting the data and then use a mod_rewrite to change the URL's of those pages?
Cheers

It is the structure that I follow, as I like to have some overview of my site.

that being said.. i have built a site with only 1 file, all the rest being done using switches and includes. However.. that was the result of a site with 1 page type; one added, etcetcetc. Ending up with a 10-option swicth and as many different includes works, but gets a bit of a pain, for me then (But then again.. I am not bright enough to see the result of multiple actions of forms, updates and sections, parsed through a cascade of includes)

In the end: As weed said: it is a choice, which you have to make. I am not sure it would make much of a difference either way.

kbc1

Thanks for your opinions, I appreciate them.