6 ms·

URL Rewriting for Beginners

82 points by sant0sk1 18y ago

gm 18y ago
I'm part of the "I don't do this myself, but I manage people who do" crowd. It's always good to see these types of articles on here. They keep us from being totally ignorant about the mechanics of our own projects. Thanks!
- biohacker42 18y ago
  Doing that with web.py is easy and fun, takes at most half an hour, worth playing with at least once.
ajross 18y ago
It needs to be pointed out that this kind of trick is essentially a workaround for the awful URLs caused by the "the URL is the path of the handler" scheme that Apache and PHP like to encourage. It's almost always a better idea to do this another way. Note that the distinction between the "handler" part of the URL, the remaining "path-like" part and the query string is already exposed in the CGI variables (SCRIPT_NAME, PATH_INFO, and QUERY_STRING). The handlers can do this magic on their own. Doing it by placing important application code into the apache configuration for the site strikes me as very confusing.
- mseebach 18y ago
  Agreed. Indeed, most of the rewrites I've seen look like this: RewriteRule .* /index.php
  - samataro 18y ago
    Are you implying that the front-controller pattern is bad?
    - mseebach 18y ago
      No, but mod_rewrite is not the only way of implementing it. In the mentioned case, index.php would implement a front-controller. mod_rewrite is black magic, and will fail without suggesting why, just throwing a 500 Internal Server Error. Debugging a front controller in PHP (or whatever) it much easier.
snorkel 18y ago
Bah, mod_rewrite is for sissies! Parse the url in your handler code! <Location /dostuff> SetHandler mod_python PythonHandler DoStuff </Location> Any request starting with /dostuff gets passed to DoStuff handler and you can parse the url pieces in the handler itself: from mod_python import apache def handler(req): req.content_type = 'text/plain' print >> req, 'uri = %s' % req.uri print >> req, 'filename = %s' % req.filename print >> req, 'path_info = %s' % req.path_info return apache.OK
- deleted 18y ago
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- deleted 18y ago
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- sant0sk1 18y ago
  or like this: require 'rubygems' require 'sinatra' get '/:name' do "Your name is #{param[:name]}" end
iamelgringo 18y ago
Wow, I suppose that this is a big issue for people, isn't it. I'd forgotted since I'm using Django. Django makes you craft your URLs from the start. Granted, you can still create crap URLs if you really want to, but Django makes it harder to do.
markbao 18y ago
I used to do this with my flat file PHP files, but then I started using a framework. I suggest you do too. Kohana (PHP Framework) has pretty good URL rewriting resembling RoR's. /controller/method/variable. (/user/edit/1005 would reference application/controllers/user.php, class User_Controller, function user(1005).) POST/GET/PUT/etc are retained.
seekely 18y ago
http://forum.modrewrite.com/ http://forum.modrewrite.com/ has really helped me a couple of times. Just about any reasonable rewrite scenario you can think of has been asked and answered somewhere in the archive.
BrandonM 18y ago
An article that tells me how to use Apache is definitely worth 60+ upvotes! Honestly, I can appreciate the effort that went into this tutorial, but I would expect that a "hacker" could get this information just from reading a README or an example htaccess file.
Frocer 18y ago
I am very new to URL rewriting myself, so I have a pretty dumb question. How does mod rewrite affect GET operations in PHP? If you rewrite the URL: http://www.example.com?id=1 http://www.example.com?id=1 to http://www.example.com/1/ http://www.example.com/1/ And your code uses GET to grab the id from the URL. Does this still work? Or is the mod rewrite processed afterwards?

82 points by sant0sk1 18y ago

gm 18y ago

I'm part of the "I don't do this myself, but I manage people who do" crowd. It's always good to see these types of articles on here. They keep us from being totally ignorant about the mechanics of our own projects. Thanks!

biohacker42 18y ago
Doing that with web.py is easy and fun, takes at most half an hour, worth playing with at least once.

ajross 18y ago

It needs to be pointed out that this kind of trick is essentially a workaround for the awful URLs caused by the "the URL is the path of the handler" scheme that Apache and PHP like to encourage. It's almost always a better idea to do this another way. Note that the distinction between the "handler" part of the URL, the remaining "path-like" part and the query string is already exposed in the CGI variables (SCRIPT_NAME, PATH_INFO, and QUERY_STRING). The handlers can do this magic on their own. Doing it by placing important application code into the apache configuration for the site strikes me as very confusing.

mseebach 18y ago
Agreed. Indeed, most of the rewrites I've seen look like this: RewriteRule .* /index.php
- samataro 18y ago
  Are you implying that the front-controller pattern is bad?
  - mseebach 18y ago
    No, but mod_rewrite is not the only way of implementing it. In the mentioned case, index.php would implement a front-controller. mod_rewrite is black magic, and will fail without suggesting why, just throwing a 500 Internal Server Error. Debugging a front controller in PHP (or whatever) it much easier.

snorkel 18y ago

Bah, mod_rewrite is for sissies! Parse the url in your handler code! <Location /dostuff> SetHandler mod_python PythonHandler DoStuff </Location> Any request starting with /dostuff gets passed to DoStuff handler and you can parse the url pieces in the handler itself: from mod_python import apache def handler(req): req.content_type = 'text/plain' print >> req, 'uri = %s' % req.uri print >> req, 'filename = %s' % req.filename print >> req, 'path_info = %s' % req.path_info return apache.OK

deleted 18y ago
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deleted 18y ago
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sant0sk1 18y ago
or like this: require 'rubygems' require 'sinatra' get '/:name' do "Your name is #{param[:name]}" end

iamelgringo 18y ago

Wow, I suppose that this is a big issue for people, isn't it. I'd forgotted since I'm using Django. Django makes you craft your URLs from the start. Granted, you can still create crap URLs if you really want to, but Django makes it harder to do.

markbao 18y ago

I used to do this with my flat file PHP files, but then I started using a framework. I suggest you do too. Kohana (PHP Framework) has pretty good URL rewriting resembling RoR's. /controller/method/variable. (/user/edit/1005 would reference application/controllers/user.php, class User_Controller, function user(1005).) POST/GET/PUT/etc are retained.

seekely 18y ago

http://forum.modrewrite.com/ http://forum.modrewrite.com/ has really helped me a couple of times. Just about any reasonable rewrite scenario you can think of has been asked and answered somewhere in the archive.

BrandonM 18y ago

An article that tells me how to use Apache is definitely worth 60+ upvotes! Honestly, I can appreciate the effort that went into this tutorial, but I would expect that a "hacker" could get this information just from reading a README or an example htaccess file.

Frocer 18y ago

I am very new to URL rewriting myself, so I have a pretty dumb question. How does mod rewrite affect GET operations in PHP? If you rewrite the URL: http://www.example.com?id=1 http://www.example.com?id=1 to http://www.example.com/1/ http://www.example.com/1/ And your code uses GET to grab the id from the URL. Does this still work? Or is the mod rewrite processed afterwards?