mod_rewrite: how to point to a different file but keep the query vars ?

Question

I have these rewriteRules which work fine:

# 4 params
RewriteRule ^([A-Za-z0-9-]+)/([A-Za-z0-9-]+)/([A-Za-z0-9-]+)/([A-Za-z0-9-]+)/?$ index.php?app=$1&do=$2&what=$3&id=$4 [NC,L,QSA]

# 3 params
RewriteRule ^([A-Za-z0-9-]+)/([A-Za-z0-9-]+)/([A-Za-z0-9-]+)/?$ index.php?app=$1&do=$2&what=$3 [NC,L,QSA]

# 2 params
RewriteRule ^([A-Za-z0-9-]+)/([A-Za-z0-9-]+)/?$ index.php?app=$1&do=$2 [NC,L,QSA]

# 1 param
RewriteRule ^([A-Za-z0-9-]+)/?$ index.php?app=$1 [NC,L,QSA]

Now, i would like that if the url contains /api/ then i would like it to point to a file called public.api.php but still have those 4 query vars as parameters. I could arrange that via explicitating all the rules in the order in which they should be processed, but it makes for a quite lengthy .htaccess file.

My questions is this: is there a way to add some sort of conditional rule that would check if /api/ is in the requested uri and according to this, point to index.php or public.api.php without repeating the processing of the four query vars?

Answer 1

Just escape the ? and capture all params as one group?

RewriteRule ^.*/api/.*\?(.*)$ /public.api.php?$1 [NC,L,QSA]

Answer 2

The easiest would be if you just add some rules like:

RewriteRule ^api/([A-Za-z0-9-]+)/([A-Za-z0-9-]+)/([A-Za-z0-9-]+)/([A-Za-z0-9-]+)/?$ public.api.php?app=$1&do=$2&what=$3&id=$4 [NC,L,QSA]
RewriteRule ^api/([A-Za-z0-9-]+)/([A-Za-z0-9-]+)/([A-Za-z0-9-]+)/?$ public.api.php?app=$1&do=$2&what=$3 [NC,L,QSA]
RewriteRule ^api/([A-Za-z0-9-]+)/([A-Za-z0-9-]+)/?$ public.api.php?app=$1&do=$2 [NC,L,QSA]
RewriteRule ^api/([A-Za-z0-9-]+)/?$ public.api.php?app=$1 [NC,L,QSA]

Edit    Here’s another approach:

RewriteRule (^|.+?/)api/?([^/].*)?$ $1$2

RewriteRule ^([A-Za-z0-9-]+)/([A-Za-z0-9-]+)/([A-Za-z0-9-]+)/([A-Za-z0-9-]+)/?$ index.php?app=$1&do=$2&what=$3&id=$4 [NC,L,QSA]
RewriteRule ^([A-Za-z0-9-]+)/([A-Za-z0-9-]+)/([A-Za-z0-9-]+)/?$ index.php?app=$1&do=$2&what=$3 [NC,L,QSA]
RewriteRule ^([A-Za-z0-9-]+)/([A-Za-z0-9-]+)/?$ index.php?app=$1&do=$2 [NC,L,QSA]
RewriteRule ^([A-Za-z0-9-]+)/?$ index.php?app=$1 [NC,L,QSA]

RewriteCond %{THE_REQUEST} ^[A-Z]+\ /([^?\ ]+/)?api/?
RewriteRule ^index\.php$ public.api.php [L]