Redirect non-www URL to www URL in conjunction with other rules

Question

Redirecting a visitor who hits http://example.com to http://www.example.com isn't terribly difficult. But how is it done in conjunction with a RewriteRule that directs all page requests through "index.php"?

RewriteRule !\.(gif|jpg|png|css|js|php|ico|xml)$ /index.php

Answer 1

You just need to make sure that those rule, that cause an external redirect, appear before those, that cause internal rewrites. So simply:

RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} !^www\.
RewriteRule ^ http://www.%{HTTP_HOST}%{REQUEST_URI} [L,R=301]

RewriteRule !\.(gif|jpg|png|css|js|php|ico|xml)$ /index.php

Answer 2

See the answer for this post, just do the opposite.

<VirtualHost *:80>
    ServerName example.com/
    RedirectPermanent / http://www.example.com/
</VirtualHost>