mod_rewrite: Convert 'Folders' in URL Into Query Parameters

Question

I want to be able to take a URL like:

http://www.example.com/valOne/valTwo/valThree/valFour/valFive

and convert it to:

http://www.example.com/index.php?one=valOne&two=valTwo&three=valThree&four=valFour&five=valFive

I really only need a few query parameters for my application so the Regular Expression could have these five hard coded, but it would be nice if it could dynamically create new query parameters as additional 'folders' are added to the URL. Additionally, not all five folders or QPs will always be present, so it must be able handle that appropriately.

Answer 1

Here’s a mod_rewrite rule that meets your needs:

RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteRule ^([^/]*)/?([^/]*)/?([^/]*)/?([^/]*)/?([^/]*)/?$ index.php?one=$1&two=$2&three=$3&four=$4&five=$5

But it would be certainly easier if you parse the requested URI path with PHP instead:

RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteRule !^index\.php$ index.php

$_SERVER['REQUEST_URI_PATH'] = preg_replace('/\?.*/', '', $_SERVER['REQUEST_URI']);
$segments = explode('/', trim($_SERVER['REQUEST_URI_PATH'], '/'));
var_dump($segments);