Apache rewrite to add a directory to REQUEST_URI not working on localhost running wamp.

Question

I'm running wamp on Vista (Apache v2.2.11) and have projects setup such that http://localhost/projectx is the base directory for projectx. Now, I want that requests for

http://localhost/projectx/somepage/extra

will rewrite to

http://localhost/projectx/PUBLIC/somepage/extra

To that end I have a file in C:\wamp\www\projectx\.htacces that is this simple:

RewriteEngine On
RewriteBase /projectx
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !^/PUBLIC
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ /PUBLIC$1 [L]

I can't for the life of me figure out why this doesn't work. The error I'm getting is "The requested URL /PUBLIC was not found on this server". Thanks.

UPDATE 25-MAR-2010:

As per Michael's solution I removed the absolute path. For some reason I also needed to add a final slash to the Cond and Rule:

RewriteEngine On
RewriteBase /projectx
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !^/PUBLIC/
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ PUBLIC/$1 [L]

Answer 1

Try changing this: RewriteRule ^(.*)$ /PUBLIC$1 [L]

To this: RewriteRule ^(.*)$ PUBLIC$1 [L]

It's probably just the absolute path that is the problem.

You also need to change the $1 to be zero based so RewriteRule ^(.*)$ PUBLIC$0 [L]

Answer 2

Should be

RewriteEngine On

RewriteBase /projectx

RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !^/PUBLIC

RewriteRule ^(.)(PUBLIC)(.)$ /projectx/PUBLIC$3 [L]