.htaccess - Redirect All URLs + Existing Directories to index.php

Question

I need to be able to redirect absolutely all URLs in a directory to the index.php file in the directory. Unlike for all of the other answers I've found, this includes existing directories and existing files. I am using Apache with an .htaccess file to accomplish this. So far my .htaccess file is as follows:

 <IfModule mod_rewrite.c> RewriteEngine On RewriteRule /sub/directory/index\.php - [L] RewriteRule - /sub/directory/index\.php </IfModule>

But for some reason it doesn't redirect anything to index.php. I've also tried:

 <IfModule mod_rewrite.c> RewriteEngine On RewriteRule /sub/directory/index\.php - [L] RewriteRule ^.*$ /sub/directory/index\.php </IfModule>

But this gives me an inevitable "500 Error". What am I doing wrong? How can I simply redirect everything to index.php?

TIA

Olaf Dietsche · Accepted Answer · 2019-07-22 18:51:40Z

The error is with this RewriteRule

RewriteRule /sub/directory/index\.php - [L]

See What is matched?

In per-directory context (Directory and .htaccess), the Pattern is matched against only a partial path, for example a request of "/app1/index.html" may result in comparison against "app1/index.html" or "index.html" depending on where the RewriteRule is defined.

and "Per-directory Rewrites":

The removed prefix always ends with a slash, meaning the matching occurs against a string which never has a leading slash. Therefore, a Pattern with ^/ never matches in per-directory context.

This means, the leading slash prevents the pattern from matching. Changing it to

RewriteRule ^sub/directory/index\.php - [L]

will fix the problem.

The 500 Internal server error comes from the second rule (in combination with the non-matching first rule).

RewriteRule ^.*$ /sub/directory/index\.php

This will rewrite any request to /sub/directory/index.php, which in turn will be rewritten again to /sub/directory/index.php, and so on until the rewrite module gives up and shows a "too many redirects" error or similar.

You were right. That line wasn't matching, causing the issue! Thanks! Perhaps I wasn't clear in my question, but the .htaccess file is actually in the '/sub/directory/' folder. Thus, once I stripped it down to just, RewriteRule ^index\.php - [L] it worked!

Codesmith · Accepted Answer · 2019-07-22 00:01:23Z

Still have no idea why my second original .htaccess file didn't work, but the following finally got it working:

 <IfModule mod_rewrite.c> RewriteEngine On RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !=/sub/directory/index.php RewriteRule .* /sub/directory/index.php </IfModule>

However, I'll happily accept any answer that can well explain why my second original file kept giving me a 500 error.

score 0 · Accepted Answer · 2019-07-22 18:29:23Z

Syntax errors, additionally re-matching the first rule after the second match (not last).

any-request -> /sub/directory/index.php -> /sub/directory/index.php - [L]

<IfModule mod_rewrite.c> RewriteEngine On # RewriteRule /sub/directory/index\.php - [L] RewriteRule ^(.*)$ /sub/directory/index.php [L] </IfModule>

My other suggestion (index.php is the directory index file and is the first in order when requesting the directory):

<IfModule mod_rewrite.c> RewriteEngine On RewriteRule ^sub/directory/(.*)$ /sub/directory/ [R=301,L] </IfModule>

Edison Neza · Accepted Answer · 2019-07-22 18:34:06Z

Another way, you can use this code: (comment second and third line to accept even files and directory in url)

 RewriteEngine on RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d RewriteRule ^(.*)$ /index.php?path=$1 [NC,L,QSA]

Beginner · Accepted Answer · 2020-07-04 15:05:20Z

I faced the same problem and I can fix it somehow (not in a smart way I guess). The problem is because HTML does not change to the root folder.

I can solve mine by use HTML "base tag" (you can the path to adapt with the root directory you want.

You also need to give a condition to allow this change only on the targeted page.

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