RewriteRule and Trailing Slashes

July 15, 2005 6:17 AM

How do I write a RewriteRule for an .htaccess file that includes if the user does (or doesn't) use a trailing slash?

RewriteRule ^/virtual-directory/(Not sure what goes here) /actual-place-to-go

And I think I need to make it a permanent redirect right? Or use some kind of [QSA] attribute?

posted by ao4047 to Computers & Internet (2 answers total)

What you want.

RewriteRule ^virtual-directory/* /actual-place-to-go [L,R=301]

First, if this is in an .htaccess file, you don't want the leading forward slash (^/). If this is going in the http.conf, you do want this. If you have the power, always include mod_rewrite rules in the http.conf file. See docs for reasons why.

The * special character indicates "include the previous character 0 or more times".

The [L] says "make this the last redirect", which you probably want and will save your server a little extra work.

As to what kind of Redirect it should be (perm, temp), that depends on what you're using it for. If you do want this to be a permanant redirect (meaning, among other things, the URL in the browser will change to /actual-place-to-go), the R=301 takes care of that.
posted by alana at 6:38 AM on July 15, 2005

I put a:

?/?

at the end of the source (as opposed to the target) to allow an optional trailing slash.
posted by waldo at 9:38 AM on July 15, 2005