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The second argument of

RewriteRule

isn’t written using the regular expressions language. Indeed,

it doesn’t need to, because it’s not meant to match anything. Instead, it simply supplies the form of the

rewritten URL. The only part with a special significance here is the

$1

variable, whose value is extracted

from the expression between parentheses of the first argument of

RewriteRule

.

As you can see, this rule does indeed rewrite any request for a URL that ends with

Products/P

n

.html

to

product.php?productID=

n

, which can be executed by the

product.php

script you wrote earlier.

At the end of a rewrite rule you can also add special flags for the new URL by appending one or more

flag arguments. These arguments are specific the

RewriteRule

command, and not to regular expres-

sions in general. Table 3-4 lists the possible

RewriteRule

arguments. These rewrite flags must always

be placed in square brackets at the end of an individual rule.

Table 3-4

RewriteRule

Option

Significance Description

R

Redirect

Sends an HTTP redirect

F

Forbidden Forbids access to the URL

G

Gone

Marks the URL as gone

P

Proxy

Passes the URL to mod_proxy

L

Last

Stops processing further rules

N

Next

Starts processing again from the first rule, but using the current

rewritten URL

C

Chain

Links the current rule with the following one

T

Ty pe

Forces the mentioned MIME type

NS

Nosubreq The rule applies only if no internal sub-request is performed

NC

Nocase

URL matching is case-insensitive

QSA

Qsappend Appends a query string part to the new URL instead of replacing it

PT

Passthrough Passes the rewritten URL to another Apache module for further

processing

S

Skip

Skips the next rule

E

Env

Sets an environment variable

59

Chapter 3: Provocative SE-Friendly URLs

c03.qxd:c03 10:39 59

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