Friendly URL's
Mod-rewrite rules
We use mod-rewrite to change the illegally formatted "friendly" request into a legitimate request directed at the index.php script like usual. Mod-rewrite is used to specify a condition pattern, and a transformation rule to apply to the URL if it matches the condition pattern. Our mod-rewrite directives are as follows:
RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !^/w.*/
RewriteRule ^/(.*)$ /wiki/index.php/$1 [L]
The re-write condition says not to touch any URL's which start with a lowercase W and start and finish with a forward slash, this protects all old-style article requests, and requests to internal MediaWiki files like scripts or images. It also allows other directories of web documents outside the wiki such as http://www.organicdesign.co.nz/www/media
The re-write rule then assumes everything after the leading slash to be an article name and reformats the URL accordingly. Also $wgArticlePath = "/$1" is set in LocalSettings.php to make the friendly form the default way of rendering links. Links involving a query-string will use the usual format.
Bug fixes
- It was transforming to ...index.php?title=$1, but this cause the ampersand bug, see 17 February 2007 news item.
- Its been improved now so that URL's are only left alone if requesting a folder (following slash) of name starting with lowercase W. This fixes a bug where articles starting with W had to be specified with capital first letter. Nad 14:25, 14 Feb 2006 (NZDT)
