Remove trailing slash with mod_rewrite

Question

I've tried every single example I could find, they all produce an internal server error. I have these rules set up (this works, no error):

Options +FollowSymLinks RewriteEngine On RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME}/index.php !-f RewriteRule ^((/?[^/]+)+)/?$ ?q=$1 [L]

So if it's not an existing file or an existing directory with an index.php we redirect. For instance, http://domain.com/foo/bar becomes http://domain.com/?q=foo/bar

Thing is, I want the trailing slash stripped. So take off the /? at the end of the rule. How do I make it so that http://domain.com/foo/bar/ becomes http://domain.com/foo/bar with a visible redirect first (fixing the client's URL), and only then the real, silent redirection to ?q=?

Everywhere I look I see this:

RewriteRule (.*)/$ $1 [R,L]

But it gives me a 500 error if I insert it before my rule.

Do you have access to the normal Apache error logs? They'll give at least a general description of what caused the 500 error. — Tim Stone
– Tim Stone, Commented Oct 14, 2010 at 18:26
@Tim: I do, but they don't seem to get logged to the error log. I see them in the raw access logs but there's nothing useful there. The trailing slash redirect appears to be "working" (in that it's not the cause of the error, though it redirects to the wrong location; That's a separate question), then the script 500'ds on the real rule (which works by itself, go figure). — Core Xii
– Core Xii, Commented Oct 14, 2010 at 18:45
And going to /foo/bar without adding the redirect rule also works, right? Hmm.. — Tim Stone
– Tim Stone, Commented Oct 15, 2010 at 19:42

Ben Jackson · Accepted Answer · 2010-10-20 20:32:28Z

If foo/bar exists as a real directory, then the server will be redirecting the client to foo/bar/ (with the trailing slash). It has to do that in order for relative URLs to work correctly on the client. If you put in a rule to rewrite that back to foo/bar with a redirect then there will be a loop. An easy way to test if that's happening is to specify a path that doesn't exist at all (I assume from your index.php detection that the directory tree actually exists). The nonexistent path won't trigger the built-in redirect.

If I setup a similar set of rules to yours (plus the suggested slash-removal rule) I can see the difference between a directory that exists and one that doesn't. The ones that don't work as expected, the ones that do cause Firefox to say This page isn't redirecting properly. IE8 says something similar. Perhaps the Apache setup you're using can detect it and turns it into the 500 error?

That seems plausible. But then, are you saying it cannot be done? Alright, perhaps I should carry out the stripping of the trailing slash in index.php itself after the redirect. Thanks.
It can be done if you are willing to move the directory tree somewhere else. Or at least the part of the tree which isn't already populated with index.php. Keep in mind with your external slash-removing redirect, relative links are going to have the very problem the server is trying to avoid: A link SRC="pic.jpg" in the page you return for .../foo/bar will be transformed by the client to .../foo/pic.jpg rather than .../foo/bar/pic.jpg. This is the whole point of the server's slash-adding redirect.
With the whole URL rewriting scheme the need arises to establish a base address anyway, so it's hardly an added concern. That's what <base> is for.

zigdon · Accepted Answer · 2010-10-12 18:35:59Z

It looks like the simpler rewrite rule you mention at the end of your question should work. The problem is, the 500 error isn't really helpful in figuring out why it's not working. One way I've found useful in helping debug mod_rewrite errors is to enable it's logging. Add the following to your httpd.conf:

 RewriteLog "/usr/local/var/apache/logs/rewrite.log" RewriteLogLevel 3

Then try again, and look in the log to see what's going on. Once you're done, you can disable the log be setting the rewriteloglevel 0. See the mod_rewrite docs for details.

Problem is, I don't have access to any httpd.conf that I'm aware of.

Gumbo · Accepted Answer · 2010-10-13 06:28:22Z

0

Try this rule in front of your current rule:

RewriteRule (.*)/$ /$1 [R,L]

answered Oct 13, 2010 at 6:28

Gumbo

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Comments

Vladislav Ross · Accepted Answer · 2014-01-10 10:44:50Z

Try these rules:

#prevent mod_dir from adding slash DirectorySlash Off #redirect /folder/ to /folder RewriteCond %{THE_REQUEST} ^GET\s\S+/(\?\S+)?\s [NC] RewriteRule ^(.*)/$ /$1 [R=301,L,QSA] #internal redirect for directories RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} -d RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !/$ RewriteRule ^(.*)$ /$1/ [L]

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