Rewrite URL using PHP with a generated key - php

Question

I want to rewrite my URL with an generated key.
So...
My base URL -> www.example.com
My problematic URL -> www.example.com/actions.php
And the final URL I want to be like www.example.com/41f1341df14r12
The problem is that i want to generate each page based on a key (41f1341df14r12) from my database (MYSQL).
P.S. I want to use PHP for that.
Thanks!
UPDATE:
Sorry for confusing. My English is not so well.
So... what i want:
In index.php I have a <input type="text">. When the user press the submit button my PHP generates a key (41f1341df14r12) and store both (key and input text) in database. I want when user press the submit to go to a page with URL like
www.example.com/41f1341df14r12
and on that page to see his message.
I hope to understand now :D

Answer 1

First your apache need mod_rewrite Url. Then you can use this code in your .htaccess to redirect the key to a php file that can process the key.
RewriteEngine On
# Rewrite only if its not a file
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
# and if its not a directory
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
# rewrite the request to action.php
RewriteRule .* action.php [L]
In the PHP Script you can read from the super global variable $_SERVER['REQUEST_URI'].
<?php
echo substr($_SERVER['REQUEST_URI'], 1); //remove the first /
Alternative you could redirect the key to a GET variable:
RewriteRule (.*) action.php?key=$1 [L]

Answer 2

One way to accomplish this is using URL rewriting. This is when the web server opens a certain (PHP) file if an address matches one of the set rules.
The process is different for every web server, I'm assuming you are using apache.
You will need to create an .htaccess file in the root of your web server and add the following lines:
RewriteEngine On
RewriteRule ^([a-z0-9]+)/?$ handler.php?key=$1 [L]
The first line enables URL rewriting. The second creates a rule that says: "If the requested URL matches the format 'example.com/key/', open the file 'handler.php' and pass it the key."
In your PHP file (handler.php in this example), you can access your key with $_GET['key'] and use it to generate the page.
For more information see this tutorial.
Notes:
You may need to restart the web server after creating the .htaccess
file.
This will not match uppercase letters, use ^([A-Za-z0-9]+)/?$ instead.
If you are not using shared hosting, you may need to enable mod_rewrite in the apache httpd.conf (see tutorial).