Topic: [mod_rewrite] Overwrite parent's htaccess rewrite rule

[benny00100]

Hi,

I have got a problem with mod_rewrite and looking for help.

Current situation:

The main project is directly located in the projectroot folder. A subproject lies in a subfolder of the main project.

/projectroot/.htaccess
/projectroot/*.php (various PHP files of the main project)

/projectroot/subproject/.htaccess
/projectroot/subproject/* (various files incl. PHP files)

In the subproject I have the following .htaccess rule, which redirects requests to files which doesn't exists to the 404.php script.

# Redirect von ungültigen URL request auf 404.php
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteRule ^.*$ 404.php [L]


The problem:

In the parent dir of the main project the .htaccess contains the following rule

<FilesMatch "\.(htm|php|js|css|htc|png|gif|jpe?g|ico|xml|csv|txt|swf|flv|mp4|webm|ogv|mp3|ogg|oga|eot|woff|svg|ttf|pdf|gz)$">
RewriteEngine Off
</FilesMatch>

This causes, that in my subproject - all requests to non-existing php files do not redirect to 404.php

So:

/projectroot/subproject/doesnotexists redirects to 404.php

whereas

/projectroot/subproject/doesnotexists.php does not work


The question:

Is there a way to overwrite the parents' .htaccess rule. I tried the following without any luck:

<FilesMatch "\.(php)$">
RewriteEngine On
</FilesMatch>

Thanks for help.

Best,
benny!

[glsmith]

To be honest, this seems like a very expensive way to have a custom 404 page. I do not think mod_rewrite was ever designed for this purpose, this is what ErrorDocument is for.

Likewise, unless you have turned on RewriteEngine above /projectroot, RewriteEngine is off by default.

[benny00100]

Thanks for your reply.

Hmm ... About the 404 case you might be right - but this is not the issue.

If it makes more sense, replace the 404.php with maincontroller.php Like most PHP MVC frameworks are using mod_rewrite.

So, I really wonder how this "overwriting" of parents htaccess rules can work.

[glsmith]

OK, I guess I should have simply asked.

1. What does happen when you go to /projectroot/subproject/doesnotexists.php? "Does not work" doesn't tell anyone anything useful. It probably actually works as it should it's just not what you THINK should happen.

2. Why on earth do you have this in the parent folder?
<FilesMatch "\.(htm|php|js|css|htc|png|gif|jpe?g|ico|xml|csv|txt|swf|flv|mp4|webm|ogv|mp3|ogg|oga|eot|woff|svg|ttf|pdf|gz)$">
RewriteEngine Off
</FilesMatch>

Yes, most frameworks use rewriting for fancy URLs, also known as search engine friendly URLs.

So, where is this framework needing rewriting for fancy urls. Parent folder (projectroot), subfolder (subproject), both?

[benny00100]

Hey glsmith - sorry for belated answer.

[glsmith]