.htaccess 301 and PHP query string - php

Question

I'm wondering if the wonderful world of the SO community can help me with this one.
I have the following URL's that I would like to redirect/rewrite in my .htaccess file.
1. Redirect
I am trying to 301 redirect this URL:
http://example.com/staff-view.php?i=ACCOUNT_ID_EXAMPLE
to
http://example.com/staff-view/ACCOUNT_ID_EXAMPLE/
I have attempted the following:
RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{THE_REQUEST} ^[A-Z]{3,}\s/+staff-view\.php\?i=([^\s]+) [NC]
RewriteRule ^ /staff-view/%1/? [R=301,L]
however when navigating to the from URL it does not redirect.
2. PHP Query String
I am using the below to rewrite:
RewriteRule ^staff-view/([^/]+)/?$ /staff-view.php?i=$1 [L,QSA,NC]
and accessing through URL
http://example.com/staff-view/ACCOUNT_ID_EXAMPLE/
it correctly directs me to the right page, but when attempting to access ACCOUNT_ID_EXAMPLE via the following methods:
<?
var_dump($_REQUEST);
var_dump($_GET);
?>
They both are empty:
array(0) { } array(0) { }
I would appreciate any help, if you need any more info, please let me know.
Update 1
Updated .htaccess file:
RewriteEngine On
RewriteRule ^staff/([^/]+)/?$ /staff-view.php?i=$1 [L,QSA,NC]
RewriteBase "/"
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} ^staff-view\.php$
RewriteCond %{QUERY_STRING} ^i=([A-Z0-9_]*)$
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ ^staff/%1/
I have attempted to access the file from:
http://example.com/path/to/site/staff/ACCOUNT_ID
and it DOES NOT work. However, if I access the file from:
http://example2.com/staff/ACCOUNT_ID
it WORKS.
But if I go to http://example2.com/staff-view.php?i=ACCOUNT_ID it does not redirect to http://example2.com/staff/ACCOUNT_ID - this is not the end of the world, but I would like to fix it, but the deep directory issue as a priority :).

Answer 1

Try using this:
RewriteEngine On
RewriteRule ^staff-view/([^/]*)$ /staff-view.php?i=$1 [L]

Answer 2

Trying to parse %{THE_REQUEST} (e.g., "GET /staff-view.php?i=account_id HTTP/1.1") to extract both the path and the query string could work but it's unnecessarily complex. I think it's much simpler to use two rewrite conditions that take advantage of the server variables %{REQUEST_URI} and %{QUERY_STRING} because they are pre-populated with the info you're interested in.
Try the following:
RewriteEngine On
#If you don't have this set in your htaccess,
# Apache may prepend the final path with your on disk dir structure
RewriteBase "/"
#Rewrite if the /staff-view.php page is requested
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} ^/staff-view\.php$
#Rewrite if the query string contains i parameter anywhere. Assumes
# ID can be only digits; include all allowed chars. eg: [a-zA-Z0-9_]
#Don't forget the '&' before {{QUERY_STRING}} otherwise the match
# will fail if i is the first parameter
RewriteCond &%{QUERY_STRING} &i=([0-9]+)
#Rewrite the account ID as part of the path. Append the query string
# in order to preserve other query parameters (eg: if user asked for
# /staff-view.php?i=123&x=boo, you want to preserve x=boo. a 301
# redirect tells the browser to go to the new path and to remember it
#This will stop processing and cause the browser to make a new request
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ /staff-view/%1/ [QSA,R=301,L]
#Finally, we want to silently forward any request matching the last
# redirect target to the actual file that will serve the request.
# The account ID should be of the same format as above: ([0-9]+). The
# [L] flag tells the server to stop looking for new instructions
RewriteRule ^staff-view/([0-9]+)/$ /final.php?i=$1 [QSA,L]
The logic is easy to follow: If the path requested is /staff-view.php, and if the query string contains the i parameter, tell the user's browser to go instead to /staff-view/ID, preserving the other query params. Finally, when the browser asks for this new path, silently (without telling the browser) forward the request to final.php along with the ID and other query params