URL redirection problem

[Fmdpa]

I'm building a search engine feature on my website right now, and I want the search urls to be rewritten as /search/mode/query.

RewriteRule ^/?search\.php?query=(.*?)&mode=(.*?)/?$ search/$1/$2 [R]

The redirection works fine until I get to the equals symbol. Even when I try escaping it, the redirection fails. What's wrong?.htaccess rewrites are so hard to debug.

[Synook]

I think you're thinking about rewrites the wrong way round - if you want, when someone types search/mode/query, the page at search.php?query=query&mode=mode to be loaded, then you want to rewrite the former to the latter, not the other way round:

RewriteRule ^search/(.*?)/(.*?)$ search.php?query=$1&mode=$2 [R]

P.S. if you really do want to rewrite the querystring, I think you need to use RewriteCond with %{QUERY_STRING}.

[Dilated]

I'm building a search engine feature on my website right now, and I want the search urls to be rewritten as /search/mode/query.

RewriteRule ^/?search\.php?query=(.*?)&mode=(.*?)/?$ search/$1/$2 [R]

The redirection works fine until I get to the equals symbol. Even when I try escaping it, the redirection fails. What's wrong?.htaccess rewrites are so hard to debug.

You forgot to escape the query string's question mark. Should be:

RewriteRule ^search\.php\?query=(.*?)&mode=(.*?)/?$ search/$1/$2 [R]

However, as I understand it, the query string is never included in the pattern of a rewriterule, so you'll have to do something like this instead:

RewriteCond %{QUERY_STRING} ^query=(.*?)&mode=(.*?)$ RewriteRule ^search\.php$ /search/%1/%2 [R]

[Dilated]

I think you're thinking about rewrites the wrong way round - if you want, when someone types search/mode/query, the page at search.php?query=query&mode=mode to be loaded, then you want to rewrite the former to the latter, not the other way round

Synook, I thought this at first as well, however, I noticed he was using the [R] option, which forces an external redirection, and I also noticed it was a search, presumably from a regular form, and the uri scheme hes trying to create would be impossible to achieve by submitting a form. So I'm guessing what he's trying to do is to have the user submit the form, and once the form is submitted to "search.php?search=whatever", have that get redirected to a nicer looking uri scheme, like: "/search/whatever".

[Fmdpa]

You are correct, Dilated. Actually it wouldn't be impossible to create that URI format:

<?phpif (isset($_POST)) {   $query = $_POST['query'];   $mode = $_POST['mode'];   header("Location: /search/$mode/$query");}

Ok, I really don't want to do that every time a search is performed, which is why I'm doing it with .htaccess. Dilated, your RewriteCond almost did it. It rewrote everything just as I wanted it, but the query string remained. How can I eliminate the query string?

[Dilated]

You are correct, Dilated. Actually it wouldn't be impossible to create that URI format:

It is impossible to get a uri like that from a basic form without using some kind of workaround, whether it be .htaccess, PHP, or javascript.

Ok, I really don't want to do that every time a search is performed, which is why I'm doing it with .htaccess. Dilated, your RewriteCond almost did it. It rewrote everything just as I wanted it, but the query string remained. How can I eliminate the query string?

There shouldn't be a query string left over unless you're using the QSA option (query string append). Are you sure there are only going to be two query string variables from the search?

RewriteCond %{QUERY_STRING} ^query=(.*?)&mode=([^&]*).*?$

Try using that instead to make sure it doesn't grab extra variables that may be in the query string.

[Fmdpa]

After reading some more mod_rewrite documentation, I found out that you can disable QSA by appending a ? to the replacement pattern:

RewriteCond %{QUERY_STRING} ^query=(.*?)&mode=(.*?)$RewriteRule ^search\.php$ /search/%1/%2? [R]

...which worked!