RedirectMatch and Regex Tomfoolery

Question

I'm trying to redirect all requests for /library/ to an external URL except when .pdf files are requested. e.g. www.mysite.com/library/section should redrect to www.externalsite.com but www.mysite.com/library/docs/some_pdf.pdf should serve up the PDF file without a redirect. Here's what I have:

RedirectMatch permanent /library/!(.*\.pdf) http://www.externalsite.com/

Answer 1

Try this:

RedirectMatch permanent /library/(?!.*\.pdf) http://www.externalsite.com/

Answer 2

You probably want to match the whole path rather than a substring:

RedirectMatch permanent ^/library/(?!.*\.pdf)$ ...