mod-rewrite, how to implement a second rule? - apache

Question

I'm trying to get a .htaccess file RewriteRule in my web application. I need a double rule to match two URL formats that might happen:
Rule 1 (not commented below and works like a charm)
http://example.com/whatever -> /index.php?page=whatever&
http://example.com/whatever/ -> /index.php?page=whatever&
http://example.com/whatever/?test=me -> /index.php?page=whatever&test=me
Rule 2 (commented out below and does not work, but should work like this)
http://example.com/api/ -> index.php?page=api&func=
http://example.com/api/whateverelse -> index.php?page=api&func=whateverelse
The folder /api/ does not exists on the server and by reading the documentation the L parameters should prevent the parsing of more rules. Yet if I uncomment the ^\/api\/(.*)$ I get an 404 response.
The goal is that if the first rule gets parsed the second rule is omitted, and the goal is that the first rule actually works.
Is there someone that could point me in the right direction here?
RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
#RewriteRule ^\/api\/(.*)$ //index.php?page=api&func=$1 [NC,L]
RewriteRule ^\/?([^\/]+)\/?$ //index.php?page=$1&%{QUERY_STRING} [NC,L]
I tried to debug it by adding:
LogLevel alert rewrite:trace6
but this is not allowed in the .htaccess and I do not have direct access to the server configuration files.

Answer 1

#RewriteRule ^\/api\/(.*)$ //index.php?page=api&func=$1 [NC,L]
This doesn't work because in .htaccess the URL-path matched by the RewriteRule pattern does not start with a slash. You have included a slash prefix on the regex, so it never matches.
In the following rule, the slash prefix is made optional with the ? quantifier, ie. ^\/? - so it will match. (The slash prefix is only required when the directive is used in a server context. By making it "optional", it would work in either.)
If you are only using .htaccess then you can remove the slash prefix from the RewriteRule pattern altogether.
For example:
RewriteRule ^api/(.*) /index.php?page=api&func=$1 [NC,L]
Additional notes...
No need to backslash escape slashes in the regex, as they carry no special meaning. (Apache uses spaces as argument delimiters.)
Not sure what the double slash prefix on the substitution string was for? ie. //index.php. You should only have at most one slash here, or none at all for an internal rewrite (and the index.php file is in the same directory as the .htaccess file). (The double slash still "works", only because Apache is reducing instances of multiple slashes when it maps the URL to the filesystem.)
The RewriteCond directives only apply to the first RewriteRule directive that follows, so you may need to repeat these for the second rule. (Or reverse the logic and stop processing when a request does map to a file/directory? However, this might depend on what other directives you have in the file.) If you don't have physical files that start /api then you can remove the conditions from that rule.
You don't need to manually append the QUERY_STRING to the substitution. This is what the QSA (Query String Append) flag is for. The QSA flag will also avoid a stray & at the end when no query string is present on the request.
The NC flag is not required on the last rule. It may not be required on the "api" rule either, unless /API, or /ApI etc. might be required - but this should be avoided.
So, bringing this together, we have....
RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteRule ^api/(.*) /index.php?page=api&func=$1 [NC,L]
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteRule ^([^/]+)/?$ /index.php?page=$1 [QSA,L]