How to serve files with mod rewrite

Have you ever wondered how some websites seem to serve files in a way that looks like folders instead of actual file names? For instance this website. To see this blog post you are linked to the URL http://adambecker.info/development/how-to-serve-files-with-mod-rewrite/ but in actuality the web server is running a PHP file and serving it as if it is being run from the location I just pasted.

Why do this? There are some good reasons for doing this:

• You can make your URLs friendlier to the people who are visiting your website
• Having friendlier URLs means easier to understand URLs for search engines, which is good for search engine optimization
• Better security. With the way I’ve setup this model all of the server files are outside of the browse-able web directory, which means they can only be accessed through the index.php file.

Besides your normal code, you basically need two additional files: an .htaccess file and a redirection file which I’ve named index.php.

The .htaccess file lives in your root directory and should look something like this:

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<IfModule mod_rewrite.c>
RewriteEngine On
RewriteBase /
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteRule . /index.php [L]
</IfModule>

If you aren’t familiar with htaccess files, Google it and you will find some great information about them.

The index.php file also lives in the root directory and should look something like this:

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<?php
 
if(substr($_SERVER['REQUEST_URI'], 0, 10) == '/index.php'){
	header('Location:/');
}
else
{
	// due to mod_rewrite every path comes to this file
	$args = explode('/', $_SERVER['REDIRECT_URL']);
	$pages = array();
 
	// we're going to remove all of the empty arguments
	foreach($args as $arg)
	{
		if(strlen($arg) > 0)
		{
			$pages[] = $arg;
		}
	}
 
	// if we don't get any arguments we want to give it our main page
	if(count($pages) == 0)
	{
		$pages[] = 'main';	
	}
 
	// in this model the area's main page is named after the area
	if(count($pages) == 1)
	{
		$pages[] = $pages[0];
	}
 
	// in this model we can accept as many nested areas
	$includePath = '../lib/pages/' . implode('/', $pages) . '.php';
 
	if((@include $includePath) != true){
		if((@include '../lib/pages/error/404.php') != true){
			echo 'There was a serious error, and we\'re sorry for the inconvenence. Please try again soon.';
		}
	}
}
 
?>

Sample File Structure

The file is pretty self explanatory, but it is important to know that this isn’t the only way to do it. I’ve added some functionality for error 404 pages, and an even bigger fatal error. Last, I wanted to include a picture of a sample file structure that this particular example works for. Keep in mind that the htdocs directory is the only publicly browsable folder via a web browser in this sample.