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URL Rewrite Question – Trailing Slash

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Oct 25.2010

RewriteEngine On
RewriteRule ^([a-zA-Z0-9_-]+)$ user.php?username=$1
RewriteRule ^([a-zA-Z0-9_-]+)/$ user.php?username=$1

Hi this works ok for:

[url]http://domain/user[/url]

but not for:

[url]http://domain/user/[/url]

What should I add to make the trailing slash at the end take?

Thanks.

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PHP

12 Comments(s) ↴

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@xeteaOct 25.2010 — change it to:

RewriteEngine on

RewriteRule ^([^/.]+)/?$ user.php?username=$1

The important part is the question mark after the slash. That means that there can, but doesn't have to, be a slash after the matched expression.

This is the best tutorial I have found on mod_rewrite: http://www.workingwith.me.uk/articles/scripting/mod_rewrite
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@theflyingminstauthorOct 25.2010 — Hey, thanks so much.

I tried your new code and when I added the trailing slash again (http://domain/user/) I lost my css style and such.
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@xeteaOct 25.2010 — I have to admit I'm no expert in mod_rewrite. But if you post your HTML document I might find some answers.
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@nodeheadOct 25.2010 — You page is using relative URLs. When you visit http://domain/user/ for example, most browsers will be looking for your css file at http://domain/user/CSS.css instead of http://domain/CSS.css (they'll think that "user" is a directory)

Add a Base tag to the head of your HTML document(s), that'll sort it out:

HTML

<base href="http://domain">

xHTML

<base href="http://domain" />
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@theflyingminstauthorOct 25.2010 — Yes, adding the base url in the head did the trick, thank you both very much!
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@theflyingminstauthorOct 25.2010 — .. uh oh, now if I try to go to any folder (ex: http://domain/folder/) it takes me to the mod rewrite setting trying to find a user with that folder name..
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@xeteaOct 25.2010 — Yep, that would be the downside. It might be smarter to do something like this:

RewriteEngine on

RewriteRule ^user/([^/.]+)/?$ user.php?username=$1 [NC]

So to reach a user's page you would use the URL http://domain.com/user/username
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@theflyingminstauthorOct 25.2010 — Oh, that's a great idea. Thanks!
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@theflyingminstauthorOct 26.2010 — ..wait does the folder user/ have to actually EXIST for that to work?.. because it's not retrieving the url query string properly now..
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@nodeheadOct 26.2010 — Just keep your link structure as you had it and use a rewrite condition to make sure a directory doesn't exist before implementing the rewrite rule:

[CODE]Options +FollowSymLinks
RewriteEngine On

RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d [NC]
RewriteRule ^([a-z0-9_-]+)/?$ user.php?username=$1 [L,NC][/CODE]
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@nodeheadOct 26.2010 — Incidently, xetea's point of using a fake directory to differentiate a user request in the URL [I]is[/I] a tidier option... but usually only if you've planned it out that way. And NO! The "user" folder shouldn't exist.
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@theflyingminstauthorOct 26.2010 — Weird, cause the way that ended up working for me was xetea's:

RewriteEngine on

RewriteRule ^user/([^/.]+)/?$ user.php?username=$1 [NC]

..As well as creating an empty user/ folder..
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