.htaccess and PHP for multiple parameters - php

Question

I need a little help(I am not a pro),
My .htaccess file looks like this:
RewriteEngine on
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteRule ^([^/]+)$ url.php?p1=$1 [L]
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteRule ^([^/]+)/([^/]+)$ url.php?p1=$1&p2=$2 [L]
and I would like to display the content on the basis of number of parameters (on the basis of type(in future))
What I wish to know is
$p1 = $_GET['p1'];
$p2 = $_GET['p2'];
if p2 = ""
{
echo "something";
}
else
{
echo "something";
}
Will the above code work without any issue?
What all errors can occur?
Is there a better way to handle this?
How wordpress handles this?
Note: I wish to display the contents on the basis of more than 3 params and type of params as well.

Answer 1

Generally speaking this isn't the greatest way to go about it. It's better to use a router which basically uses a single htaccess rule to catch all requests where a file/folder doesn't exist and then send them to a single php file. That file then initializes the router which figures out what the parameters are based on patterns matched against the request URI.
For example using the symfony/routing component in index.php:
// this is our index.php
// assuming we installed with composer
// and that the vendor dir is one level up from the document root
require_once __DIR__.'/../vendor/autoload.php';
use Symfony\Component\Routing\Matcher\UrlMatcher;
use Symfony\Component\Routing\RequestContext;
use Symfony\Component\Routing\RouteCollection;
use Symfony\Component\Routing\Route;
// Create a Route Collection
$routes = new RouteCollection();
// lets use an array to define our routes
$routeDefinitions = array(
'foo_archive' => array(
// note the {} wraped parts are params
'path' => '/foo/{p1}/{p2}',
'defaults' => array('controller' => 'foo/archive.php'),
'requirements' => array(
// not a very specific match but lets pretend this matches a
// category or something
'p1'=> '[a-z0-9-_]+',
// matches a date
'p2'=> '[0-9]{4}-[0-9]{2}-[0-9]{2}',
)
// there are other things we can add like options, a requrired host,
// or a specific HTTP mehtod (PUT, GET, POST, etc.)
),
'foo_index' => array(
'path' => '/foo',
'defaults' => array('controller' => 'foo/index.php')
);
);
// let's add our routes
$routeReflector = new \ReflectionClass('Symfony\Component\Routing\Route');
foreach ($routeDefinitions as $name => $def) {
$routes->add($name, $routeReflector->newInstanceArgs($def));
}
$context = new RequestContext($_SERVER['REQUEST_URI']);
$matcher = new UrlMatcher($routes, $context);
$parameters = $matcher->match($_SERVER['PATH_INFO']);
/* so assuming PATH_INFO matched one of our patterns and its
requirements parameters will be an array -
lets pretend PATH_INFO had: /foo/bar/2014-04-20
so we would have an array like:
array(
'controller' => 'archive.php',
'_route' => 'foo_archive',
'p1' => 'bar',
'p2' => '2014-04-20'
)
*/
$controllersDir = realpath(__DIR__ . '/controllers');
$controller = $controllersDir . '/' . $parameters['controller'];
if (file_exists($controller) {
// include our controller and let it do its work
// note that normally you would be instantiating a controller object
// here and invoking some method on it, but for ease of example lets
// just assume it a normal php file with all the logic for the page
include($controller);
} else {
// generate a 500 or 404 error depending on how you want to handle
// it
}
And then your .htaccess would be something like:
RewriteEngine on
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ /index.php [QSA,L]
Alternatively, if you are open to it you could use a Microframework like Silex which would wire all this up for you and give an out of the box way to do things.
Silex Example (index.php):
// assuming we installed with Composer
// and that the vendor dir is one level up from the document root
require_once __DIR__.'/../vendor/autoload.php';
$app = new Silex\Application();
// you can define routes as closures like this but normally
// I prefer to use classes... You can look at the docs for
// how to do that: http://silex.sensiolabs.org/doc/usage.html#controllers-in-classes
$app->get('/foo/{p1}/{p2}', function($p1, $p2) use($app) {
// do whatever logic you need to do to render the page
});
$app->get('/foo}', function() use($app) {
// do whatever logic you need to do to render the page
});
$app->run();