$_GET navigation without the use of ?page= - php

Question

Solved!
first of all, I know I can use "?page=..." but I do not like that variable in my URL. Now after some searching I found a site which uses the $_GET['page'] without showing the "?page=" in the url.
But I'm having a bit of a struggle with the code. I cannot seem to get this code to work. I know it works on an other site, but not on my site. I cannot seem to find how it works on the other site.
this is the menu code:
<li>Home</li>
<li>Even voorstellen</li>
<li>De kennismaking</li>
and this is the php code:
$sExpressie = "(http:|ftp:|shttp:|www.|.php|.pl|.cgi|.asp|index.php)";
if(isset($_GET['pagina']) && eregi($sExpressie,$_GET['pagina']))
{
include("pages/home.php");
}
else
{
if(isset($_GET['pagina']) && file_exists('Pages/' . $_GET['pagina'] . ".php"))
{
include('pages/' . $_GET['pagina'] . ".php");
}
else
{
include("pages/home.php");
}
}
I don't understand how this code works. In my website the "$GET['pagina']" is never filled, which is logical. But how can it be filled in the other website?
Thanks a lot everyone!
Solution:
Add the following to your .htaccess file:
RewriteEngine On
RewriteRule ^([A-Za-z0-9-]+)/?$ pages/$1.php [NC,L]

Answer 1

You'll need to add the following to your .htaccess file:
RewriteEngine On
RewriteRule ^([A-Za-z0-9-]+)/?$ pages/$1.php [NC,L]
For example, if you now navigate to http://yourwebsite.com/fubar, your website will load the page located at pages/fubar.php without changing the URL.

Answer 2

You can use a RewriteRule within your .htaccess file.
For example:
RewriteEngine On
RewriteRule ^/(.*)$ index.php?pagina=$1 [L, QSA] #(.*) is lazy and you may want to just catch [a-z0-9].
This will "rewrite" a request like http://example.com/?pagina=even_voorstellen into something like http://example.com/even_voorstellen. Your index.php can then use $_GET['pagina'] to call the respective page.