How to mod_rewrite redirect php-file-url to new path - apache

Question

I want to redirect
http://api.domain.com/api.php?debug=true
to
http://api.domain.com/getData/?debug=true
What's wrong?
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !^/api\.php/.*
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ /getData/$1
Also not working
RewriteRule ^/api\.php(.*)$ /getData/$1 [PT]

Answer 1

That did the job
RewriteRule ^api.php$ /getData/

Answer 2

Let me first tell you what is wrong with your two attempts:
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !^/api\.php/.*
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ /getData/$1
This translates to: If the URI part of the url (after the domain and before the query string) does not match api.php, translate ^(.*)$ to /getData/$1. You want however to do it when the uri does match that string, making the condition obsolete.
RewriteRule ^/api\.php(.*)$ /getData/$1 [PT]
You tried to match the query string here with (.*), but that is not how it works. Besides that, in per-directory context (which is what .htaccess is), the url never starts with a slash. ^/ therefore never ever matches.
If you don't define a query string in the rewritten part, then the query string of the old url is appended to the new url. The correct rewriterule would be:
RewriteRule ^api\.php$ getData [R=301,L]
Please note that \. means "a literal dot". If I wouldn't escape it, then apisphp would redirect too. The R=301 flag will make it an external permanent redirect. The L flag will say that this is the last rule to match for this run through .htaccess. This is to prevent other rules matching on the full url, causing all kind of weird behaviour.