Mod Rewrite problem with query strings

Question

My mod rewrite rule mysteriously cuts off the periods from my query string.

For example, this is the request url:

http://mysite/tag/2/Search+For+Articles...

this is the query string I want:

tag=2&clear=Search+For+Articles...

but this is what I get

tag=2&clear=Search+For+Articles

Here is my mod_rewrite configuration

Options -Indexes
Options +FollowSymLinks
RewriteEngine On

RewriteRule ^tag/([^/]*)/([^/]*)(/?)$ f.php?tag=$1&clear=$2 [L,QSA]

How can I fix this problem?

Answer 1

I think the problem may be with your Apache configuration itself... I created a simple f.php script on one of my Apache2 servers that simply consisted of the following:

<pre>
<?php
print_r($_SERVER);
?>
</pre>

I then created the .htaccess file with the exact contents you specified in your question. Now when I hit http://my.server.com/tag/2/Search+For+Articles... I got a 404 error. However if I called it as http://my.server.com/f.php?tag=2&clear=Search+For+Articles... I got the output I expected. I then went back to my Apache config and found that the Directory listing for the path I was working in had AllowOverride None so I changed it to AllowOverride All and attempted the /tag/... prefixed URI and low and behold I received the following output:

Array
(
    [REDIRECT_STATUS] => 200
    [HTTP_HOST] => my.server.com
    [PATH] => /usr/local/bin:/usr/bin:/bin
    [DOCUMENT_ROOT] => /var/www
    [SERVER_ADMIN] => webmaster@localhost
    [SCRIPT_FILENAME] => /var/www/f.php
    [REMOTE_PORT] => 35393
    [REDIRECT_QUERY_STRING] => tag=2&clear=Search+For+Articles...
    [REDIRECT_URL] => /tag/2/Search+For+Articles...
    [GATEWAY_INTERFACE] => CGI/1.1
    [SERVER_PROTOCOL] => HTTP/1.1
    [REQUEST_METHOD] => GET
    [QUERY_STRING] => tag=2&clear=Search+For+Articles...
    [REQUEST_URI] => /tag/2/Search+For+Articles...
    [SCRIPT_NAME] => /f.php
    [PHP_SELF] => /f.php
    [REQUEST_TIME] => 1313889895
)

I've cleaned up some of the variables specific to my server but as you can see the QUERY_STRING is as expected.