Handle .htaccess redirects with different parameters? - php

Question

I would like to redirect urls that don't go into directories to one script (script1.php for example), and urls that have categories to another script (script2.php). Basically I would like to do something like this:
http://www.test.com/user1 -> http://www.test.com/script1.php?username=user1 where script1.php gets the username and presents an appropriate page for that user. I have that part working with this code:
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ script1.php?username=$1 [L,QSA]
The problem now is that I would also like to have descriptive product urls so that for example http://www.test.com/clothes/jackets/cool-red-jacket-25 redirects to http://www.test.com/items.php?category=clothes&subcategory=jackets&id=25. I have some code that should work for that too:
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteRule ^/?([a-zA-Z-]+)/([a-zA-Z-]+)/.*-A([0-9-.]+)\.php$
script2.php?category=$1&subcategory=$2&id=$3 [L]
The problem I'm having is combining these 2 types of redirection. The first redirect always redirects to its own page and the second redirect will never get reached. Is it possible to combine these 2 and in which way? Basically I need something like this for htaccess if possible
if(!urlHasDirectories) {
redirect to script1.php?username=$username;
} else {
redirect to script2.php?category=$category&subcategory=subcategory&id=$id;
}

Answer 1

Lets go over basic regexs, we'll use Regex101 for this. The . is any character and * is a quantifier of the previous character/grouping zero or more times. So your first regex, RewriteRule ^(.*)$ script1.php?username=$1 [L,QSA] says rewrite anything that starts with anything and ends with anything to scripts1.php. That isn't what you want.
Demo: https://regex101.com/r/hK0xY3/1
With regexs it is best to be as specific as possible.
I would make your rule for users:
RewriteRule ^(user\d+)$ script1.php?username=$1 [L,QSA]
Demo: https://regex101.com/r/hK0xY3/4
The + is another quantifier here meaning one or more, so you could change that to an * if a number ins't required.
You said you wanted a regex that finds if there is a / in the path. I think it is best to tell the regex what to look at but that is possible:
^.+?\/
Demo: https://regex101.com/r/hK0xY3/3
With this approach though any directory request will be redirected...

Answer 2

for seo friendly url use this like :
RewriteRule ^user/([a-zA-Z0-9_-]+)$ user.php?username=$1
RewriteRule ^item/([a-zA-Z0-9_-]+)/([a-zA-Z0-9_-]+)/([a-zA-Z0-9_-]+)$ items.php?category=$1&subcategory=$2&id=$3

Answer 3

You need to put the more specific rule higher in the .htaccess file so it could be matched first. Use this in general.
Be awere that the most general rule (.*) that matches the rest of requests can be used for more different actions.
.com/john-doe // for user profile
.com/my-new-article // for showing article and so on
If you want to combine all those variations u need to decide which action to use (profile or showing article) on your application level. For example controller in mvc architecture. It can be accomplished easily by conditions.
if(userExists($userName))
// showing template for user profile etc...