.htaccess issue when creating users profile? - php

Question

I am using .htaccess code in order to pass pages titles to the url and then retrieve them with php from mysql tables when the page loads.
RewriteEngine on
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-l
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ index.php?url=$1 [QSA,L]
I am using this php code to explode the url and get the title:
$passed_url = $_SERVER['REQUEST_URI'];
$passed_url = explode("/", $passed_url);
$passed_url = end($passed_url);
Now I want to create a user profile page like so www.website.com/users/User_name_in_here
how do I check with php if this is a users page or it is just a regular page which can be writer like so: www.webiste.com/Page_title_in_here
is there a better way to do this ?(I am just a starter in php)

Answer 1

One way is to check $passed_url[1]. If it's 'users' then you know you're on the users page.
A better way would be to use index.php as a front controller and pass the request to a controller based on the request uri. there are a number of ways to do this.
Some frameworks map the uri to a class::method. So your url would be changed to /users/view/username and the users::view would be called.
I prefer to write regular expressions and which ever regular expression is matched controls which controller is loaded.

Answer 2

You can actually change your Rewrite Engine .htaccess file this way:
RewriteEngine On
RewriteRule (.*)-(.*)\.ptf$ ./?page=$1&id=$2&%{QUERY_STRING}
RewriteRule ^([^/]*)\.ptf$ ./?page=$1&%{QUERY_STRING} [L]
RewriteCond %{SCRIPT_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{SCRIPT_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ ./?page=$1&id=$2&%{QUERY_STRING}
So, this rule, what it exactly does is:
when the URL is www.website.com/Page_title_in_here,
it goes to www.website.com/?page=Page_title_in_here
and when you put this way, www.website.com/users-User_name_in_here,
it redirects to www.website.com/?page=users&id=User_name_in_here
So you can manipulate with the $_GET["page"] and $_GET["page"] variables!
What say? I do this way. Hope this helps you!