apache - Rewriting url to hide index.php and to make query nice

Question

I had developed project with custom MVC architecture. And I am new to Apache world, so I would appreciate help with this matter. On a Web I had found lots of tutorials, but no one like mine interests.

I have URL like this: http://knjiskicrv.comoj.com/index.php?page=book&id=1

I would like to be display like this: http://knjiskicrv.comoj.com/book/id/1

Or this: http://knjiskicrv.comoj.com/index.php?page=faq Into this: http://knjiskicrv.comoj.com/faq

If there is no page in query (http://knjiskicrv.comoj.com/index.php), I would like to show: http://knjiskicrv.comoj.com/

Also with no page in query (http://knjiskicrv.comoj.com/index.php?category=2), it should be like this http://knjiskicrv.comoj.com/category/2

Hope someone will help. Thanks.

Answer 1

Actually, your problem is a two step proble. You first need to understand what is "Routing" in MVC. If you have your own implementation of an MVC like framework and you don't support routing, then it probably means you didn't even know how it worked before. (Sad but true)

In an MVC framework you setup routes using a ROUTER and the router analyses the urls for you saying HEY, i found this url that matches your request, go ahead and do work with it.

So then, your controller receives a request to route into itself and PARSES the url as he sees fit. Such as using explode('/', $_SERVER['REQUEST_URI']) and then reading the different parts of the url to map to expected variables.

All of this is very theoretical because there are ZILLIONS of way to implement it in a custom way. The only thing you will have to use is a little mod_rewrite magic to pass all requests to your index.php that will route everything. Look at the url below to learn about mod_rewrite, it's a VERY COMPLEX subject:

http://www.addedbytes.com/for-beginners/url-rewriting-for-beginners/

What i usually go for but i don't have access to it from home is something like this:

RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !^assets/
RewriteRule .* index.php

This will redirect all traffic to index.php and you can then use $_SERVER['REQUEST_URI'] to analyze the request. Everything in assets/ folder will not be touched and work correctly.

Note, i built that part off my hat, it might not work...