hey, i am trying to rewrite a url from this one:

http://www.example.com/links.php?view=category&id=43

to this one:

http://www.example.com/links/category/43

the rewrite works, but the user has to enter to www.example.com/links first and then he chooses a category.
the problem is that when a category isnt selected when he is at- www.example.com/links then the server returns a 404 error.

can someone tell me how can i fix it?

    you're not posting your stab at a regular expression so it's tough to assist. At the risk of spoiling your post, you might consider just having this line in your root .htaccess file:

    ErrorDocument 404 /404.php

    then, if you discern a valid request simply require() that page and set the variables like $view=category &$id=13 etc. Also be sure you return a 200 OK header (you might consider 299 if you have a certain bug I think with Apache)

    here is some code I use for my 404 page, which will give you some ideas:

    



//2009-04-24, new method: presumed 404 page masquerading as other page, get page from REQUEST_URI
$a=explode('?',$GLOBALS['REQUEST_URI']);
$a=preg_split('/\\\|\//',$a[0]);
$thispage=$a[count($a)-1];
if(count($a)>2){
	$thisfolder=$a[count($a)-2];
}else{
	$thisfolder='';
}
//trust me there are more modern ways to do this see parse_str() if you have php 5
if($a[1]){
	//globalize query string
	$a=explode('&',trim($a[1],'&'));
	foreach($a as $pair){
		if(!stristr($pair,'='))continue;
		//safest most reliable way
		if(stristr($pair,'_SESSION') || stristr($pair,'HTTP_SESSION_VARS') || stristr($pair,'_SERVER') || stristr($pair,'HTTP_SERVER_VARS') || stristr($pair,'PHP_AUTH_USER') || stristr($pair,'PHP_AUTH_PW') || stristr($pair,'_ENV') || stristr($pair,'HTTP_ENV_VARS'))continue;

	$var=substr($pair,0,strpos($pair,'='));
	$var=str_replace('[','[\'', str_replace(']','\']',$var));
	$value=substr($pair,strpos($pair,'=')+1);
	$value=(is_numeric($value)?'':'\'') . str_replace("'","\'",urldecode($value)) . (is_numeric($value)?'':'\'');
	@eval('global $'.preg_replace('/\[.+/','',$var).';');
	@eval('$'.$var.'='.$value.';');
}
}


if(preg_match('/^\/[-a-z0-9]+$/i',$GLOBALS['REDIRECT_URL'])){
	$str=ltrim(str_replace('-',' ',$GLOBALS['REDIRECT_URL']),'/');
	if($a=q("SELECT * FROM cms1_articles WHERE REPLACE(KeywordsTitle,'-',' ')='".addslashes($str)."'", O_ROW)){
		$Articles_ID=$a['ID'];
		$Category=$a['Category'];
		$blogType=$a['SubCategory'];
		$thispage='news-*************s.php';
		header("HTTP/1.1 299 OK");
		require('news-*************s.php');
		exit;
	}
}
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