Apache RewriteRules don't work, but work when tested with other regex tools?

Question

I have this rule:

RewriteEngine On
RewriteRule   ^/page/([a-zA-Z0-9]+)\?(.*)$    /index.php?page=$1&$2

It should take something like this:

/page/contact?cake=lie

and go to the page:

/index.php?page=contact&cake=lie

I've tested this with tools like RegExr and RegexPal, and it works there. But when putting it into Apaches config, visiting the url gives Apaches 404 page.

Can anyone help?

Answer 1

If you want to pass the existing query string verbatim, mod_rewrite provides the QSA flag for this purpose. Using it, your rule set could be simplified to the following:

RewriteEngine On
RewriteRule   ^/page/([a-zA-Z0-9]+)$    /index.php?page=$1 [QSA]

mod_rewrite will then automatically append any existing query string to the one that you've added via your replacement. The result is effectively the same as Steven Monai's approach, but I feel this method a bit cleaner.

Answer 2

By default mod_write matches against REQUEST_URI, which only contains the URI but not the dynamic parameters, so it will discard everything after question mark.

To match against full URI, you need to use THE_REQUEST instead (or if there's another method , please enlighten me!). Please note that it contains the full request the client sent, for example "GET /foo?bar=baz HTTP/1.1".

Try something like

RewriteCond %{THE_REQUEST} ^(.*)$
RewriteRule ^GET /page/([a-zA-Z0-9]+)\?(.*) HTTP.*$    /index.php?page=$1&$2

Answer 3

Do you have rewrite engine turned on?

RewriteEngine On

Answer 4

Janne's assessment of why your rule doesn't work is correct. But I would take a less complicated approach to solve it:

RewriteRule ^/page/([a-zA-Z0-9]+)$ /index.php?page=$1&%{QUERY_STRING}

There's no need to pick apart the raw request to get at the query string when Apache already gives it to you in %{QUERY_STRING}.

The list of server variables available to you via the %{VARNAME} syntax is documented here.