setting up mod-rewrite to handle queries with and without data

Question

I have the following modrewrite rule:

RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteRule ^blog/([^/]*)/([^/]*)/$ /blog.php?date=$1&title=$2 [L]

Which is pretty straightforward. My question is, how do I get this rewrite to direct to blog.php if no variables are listed?

blog.php is written to both produce the article listing if no variables are present, and also to create the individual listing if one is present.

Edit: blog.php works fine without mod rewrite. If I go to http://host/blog.php it lists all my articles. If I go to http://host/blog/2010-10-05/blog-title/ it shows my single entry. Similarly, if I go to http://host/blog.php?date=2010-10-05&title=blog-title I get a single entry. However, I want http://host/blog/ to list all my entries as well.

I guess the question is: Does this require a second rewrite rule? And if so, how do I get the two to play nice.

Answer 1

From the comments talk, there you go ;)

RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteRule ^(blog|blog/)$ /blog.php [L]
RewriteRule ^blog/([^/]*)/([^/]*)/$ /blog.php?date=$1&title=$2 [L]

The blog alone comes first so if the user have typed blog or blog/ it will go to blog.php and stop there, if that requirement does not meet it will move to the second rule.

(blog|blog/)$

The $ is used to prevent that blog matchs blog.html or anything else.

The | is use as an operator OR so if it is blog OR blog/

[L] means LAST so if the rule is meet no other rule will be take into consideration after it.