mod_rewrite: setting GET depending on HTTP_HOST

Question

Hi guys,

I recently discovered the power of the mod_rewrite module and I need some help with it.

Say I have a website which has two domain names mapping to the same host...

example.com
example.net

And I would like to set a GET var depending on the the HTTP_HOST (i.e. .com OR .net ?) ...

/index.php?lang=en
/index.php?lang=es

However the caveat is this.. I already have 3 RewriteRules...

RewriteRule ^(about|contact)/?$ /index.php?page=$1 [NC]
...
..

And if I were to follow the example over here (bottom of RewriteCond) I would have to copy the 3 RewriteRules for each HTTP_HOST (i.e. .com OR .net) and add the GET var statically like; &lang=en OR &lang=es and the end of each rule...

Is there some way to do this automatically without having to copy the 3 rules all over again which only differ by just one get var at the end?

PS. I know this can be done through the scripting language, but I was wondering if this can be done through mod_rewrite, and how.

thanx!

Answer 1

Try putting something like this before all your other rules:

RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} .com$
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ $1?lang=en [QSA]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} .net$
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ $1?lang=es [QSA]

Although you might be better off using an environment variable to specify the language, using the SetEnv directive with a different language in each virtual host.

Or maybe even better yet, look into mod_negotiation, which contains some standard capabilities for dealing with languages.