CodeIgniter Routing - php

Question

I'm trying to build a short URI service with CI just so I can learn CI faster
anyway .. I got stuck at the routing
i hid the index.php then added the following route $route['([A-z0-9]{4})'] = "/forward/redirect/$1";
but it just shows my default controller
I also tried with HTaccess
RewriteBase /
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteRule ^([A-z0-9]{4})$ /forward/redirect/$1 [NC]
It gives an error for not having any passed data
any help is appreciated.
Cheers

Answer 1

Since there is no physical path /forward/redirect/, you should redirect to the "catch all" index.php file in the root and input the path as parameter:
RewriteBase /
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteRule ^([A-z0-9]{4})$ /index.php/forward/redirect/$1 [NC]
Or you can leave the rule as is and append another rule (this way you will have two rewriting cycles, the first one will rewrite to /forward/redirect/asdf and then the second one rewrites to index.php/forward/redirect/asdf:
RewriteBase /
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteRule ^([A-z0-9]{4})$ /forward/redirect/$1 [NC]
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ index.php/$1 [QSA,L]

Answer 2

i finally got it working >_>
routes file contains this
$route['([A-z0-9]{4})'] = "/forward/redirect/$1";
htaccess contains this
RewriteEngine on
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^www\.(.*) [NC]
RewriteRule ^(.*) http://%1/$1 [R=301]
RewriteBase /
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteRule ^([A-z0-9]{4})$ index.php/forward/redirect/?$1 [NC]
RewriteCond $1 !^(index\.php|images|robots\.txt|(.*).js|(.*).css|(.*).jpg|(.*).png)
//added (.*) so resources could be loaded properly :)
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ /index.php/$1 [L]