How to convert rewrites from advanced .htaccess to nginx conf rules - apache

Question

Recently switched to nginx from Apache. This works under apache perfectly fine, but don't know how to add it for nginx. Have tried htaccess to nginx converters, but they get me redirect loop.
I have WordPress in root and custom code under subdirectory.
This is the working .htaccess file on Apache:
# rewrite engine on and setting up base
RewriteEngine On
RewriteBase /leffa/
# replace + with _
RewriteRule ^(.+?)\+(.+)$ $1-$2 [R=301,L,NE]
# external redirect from action URL to pretty one
RewriteCond %{THE_REQUEST} /index(?:\.php)?\?q=([^\s&]+)&(kuvauksesta)= [NC]
RewriteRule ^ %1/%2? [R=302,L,NE]
RewriteCond %{THE_REQUEST} /index(?:\.php)?\?q=([^\s&]+)\s [NC]
RewriteRule ^ %1? [R=302,L,NE]
# skip all files and directories from rewrite rules below
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} -d [OR]
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} -f
RewriteRule ^ - [L]
# internal forward from pretty URL to actual URL (extra parameter)
RewriteRule ^([^/.]+)/([^/.]+)?$ index.php?q=$1&$2=1 [L,QSA]
# internal forward from pretty URL to actual URL
RewriteRule ^(.+)/?$ index.php?q=$1 [L,QSA]
This rewrites all the urls like http://www.rollemaa.org/leffa/index.php?q=the+boy to pretty ones like http://www.rollemaa.org/leffa/the-boy.
The situation is, I have main file set up like this:
server {
listen 80;
access_log /var/log/nginx/rollemaa.access.log;
error_log /var/log/nginx/rollemaa.error.log;
root /var/www/rollemaa.org/public_html;
index index.html index.htm index.php;
server_name rollemaa.org www.rollemaa.org;
include hhvm.conf;
include global/wordpress.conf;
# Ensure requests for pagespeed optimized resources go to the pagespeed
# handler and no extraneous headers get set.
location ~ "\.pagespeed\.([a-z]\.)?[a-z]{2}\.[^.]{10}\.[^.]+" { add_header "" ""; }
location ~ "^/ngx_pagespeed_static/" { }
location ~ "^/ngx_pagespeed_beacon" { }
# Static File Caching
location ~* .(jpg|jpeg|png|gif|ico|css|js)$ {
expires 365d;
}
#location /leffa/ {
#try_files $uri $uri/ /leffa/index.php?q=$args;
#rewrite ^/leffa/(.+?)\+(.+)$ /leffa/$1-$2 redirect;
#rewrite ^/leffa/(.*)$ /leffa/%1/%2? redirect;
#rewrite ^/leffa/(.*)$ /leffa/%1? redirect;
#if (-e $request_filename){
# rewrite ^/leffa/([^/.]+)/([^/.]+)?$ /leffa/index.php?q=$1&$2=1 break;
#}
#rewrite ^/leffa/(.+)/?$ /leffa/index.php?q=$1 break;
#}
}
As you can see, I have commented out the rewrite part, because it's not working.
Any nginx gurus out there who could help me with this? Much appreciated in advance!

Answer 1

You can use the following rewrite rule.
location /leffa/ {
index index.php index.html;
rewrite ^/leffa/([^/]*)/?$ /leffa/index.php?q=$1;
}
It will rewrite URLs like /leffa/the-boy/ and /leffa/the-boy to /leffa/index.php?q=the-boy. URLs with sub-subdirectories such as /leffa/the-boy/something-here will be ignored.
Note: + in the URL is not converted to a space (as it would be when directly accessing /leffa/index.php?q=the+boy). Accessing /leffa/the+boy/ will result in the query parameter q being "the+boy".
If you want to use spaces in the query string, you will have to use the %20 URL encoded format for spaces. /leffa/the%20boy and /leffa/the%20boy/ will result in the query parameter q being "the boy".