MOD_REWRITE not creating correct path

Question

SO I am trying to setup a RewriteRule on my server for caching static objects. the files are in this naming scheme /docroot/css/stylesheet.min.css and I have them printed in the code like /docroot/css/stylesheet.min.123438348.css (the number is example it comes from a get modified function). Note docroot is an example directory

how can I have the server ignore the numbers and redirect to the stylesheet.min.css I need to do this for every css and js files (/js and /css) as well as one specific spritemap image

my current attempt

RewriteRule ^/(docroot)/(js|css)/(.+)\.(min)\.(.+)\.(js|css)$ /$1/$2/$3.$4.$6
RewriteRule ^(/docroot/images/spritemap)\.([0-9]+)\.(png)$ $1.$3 

Update: Now I have the setup like this

<Location />
RewriteEngine on
Options FollowSymLinks
RewriteRule ^(.+)\.(min)\.([0-9]+)\.(js|css)$ $1.$2.$4 [L]
</Location>

This is rewriting localhost/docroot/css/stylesheet.min.12343242.css to /var/www/html/docroot/trunk/docroot/css/stylesheet.min.css

so it is getting the right file how do I get apache to take off the beginning of the that the /var/www/html/docroot/trunk/

---

<Location />
    RewriteEngine on
    RewriteBase /
    RewriteRule ^(.+)\.(min)\.([0-9]+)\.(js|css)$ $1.$2.$4 [PT]
</Location>

Options FollowSymLinks in Directory listing

---

Ok Now instead of

/var/www/html/docroot/trunk/docroot/css/stylesheet.min.css 

I am getting a url that looks like this

/docroot/trunk/docroot/css/stylesheet.min.css

I Removed the RewriteBase command so I still need to remove the beginning /docroot/trunk

Answer 1

I suggest to try the following:

RewriteRule ^/(.+min)\.([0-9]+)\.(js|css)$ /$1.$3 [PT]

Apache sometimes has unpredictable behaviour when no flag is set. I recommend setting it explicitly every time. Also, period characters in regexes must be escaped - otherwise they mesn "any character".

I also recommend reading the official Apache docs on mod_rewrite over here: http://httpd.apache.org/docs/current/mod/mod_rewrite.html

Answer 2

Don't ever use Rewrite directives inside of <Location> -- just use them in virtualhost context if you're not using htaccess. This greatly simplifies every single aspect of using mod_rewrite, and removes the need for stripping of per-directory prefixes, RewriteBase, etc.