Mod rewrite Tutorials

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Mod Rewrite Basic tutorials

The majority of you came to this site to find out how to do one of these basic tutorials. So lets go ahead and line up what we'll be learning.

• Simple Static to Dynamic Rewrites
• 301 and 302 redirects using mod rewrite
• File and file Extension rewrites

Tutorial 3
File and file Extension rewrites

These rewrites in this tutorial are helpful when you are changing old static .html files into a more dynamic server side scripting file like .asp, .jsp, .cfm or .php. Some of these also fall under the "if I did this it would look cool" category. Enjoy!

Scenario 1:
We have a dynamic site using .php extensions. We just want to make the site look less dynamic and more like hand made. All the file names are staying the same, we just want to change the extensions to .html.

.htaccess code RewriteEngine On
RewriteBase /

RewriteRule ^(.*)\.php $1.html [R=301,L]

RewriteRule ^(.*)\.html $1.php [L]

Like in tutorial 2 when we change files we need to use a 301 to point users and search engines to the new files. The first rewrite rule will do the redirect to the new files.

The second rewrite rule will call the .html's matching php file as an alias. Think of the file alias as allowing you to substitute any file you want on the server. In our case we're going to substitute somefile.php for somefile.html. We get all the dynamics from a .php file and the user has no clue at all.

Practical uses for scenario 1

1. To change your file extensions smoothly.
2. To alert search engines to updated files on your site.

Scenario 2:
We own a music store online. For our cd catalog online we want to change the file extensions from .php to .cds. We think users will get a laugh if the call up the file /catalog/metalica.cds .

First we'll have to change our files to out put a .cds instead of .php. Then all you need is this code

.htaccess code RewriteEngine On
RewriteBase /

RewriteRule ^catalog/(.*)\.php catalog/$1.cds [R=301,L]

RewriteRule ^catalog/(.*)\.cds catalog/$1.php [L]

Ok I know it's redundand but I know people want to know how to do this. I'm sure any of you porno boys that learn this rewrite will have fun. I'm sure your visitors will think you're the bomb when they show up to your site tomorrow and all your file extensions have been changed to .xXx .

Practical uses for scenario 2

1. To look cool to your customers
2. Come on I know you hacker boys would get a blast out of changing a victims file extensions to .dork or worse. Though this isn't very practical it would sure be funny to find cnn.com hacked and all it's extensions changed to .fox .

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