Another .htaccess problem..

[Vadim22]

Hello,
I have the following entry:

RewriteRule ^(.*)/(.*)/(.*)/(.*)/$ /category.php?cat=$1&subcat=$2&subcat2=$3&page=4 [L]

I need the last "(.*)/" (&page=4) to be optional

it works perfectly in this form:

RewriteRule ^(.*)/(.*)/(.*)/$ /category.php?cat=$1&subcat=$2&subcat2=$3 [L]

But it excludes pagination, witch is not on every result page

Please advice

[Mittineague]

Despite your statement that

it works perfectly in this form:

I can bet that it's much more likely that you just haven't noticed any problems yet. If I had a dollar every time I saw an example of a regex with the accursed "everything" atom and the problems it's use caused, my vices would be paid for.
Please do yourself a favor and take a look at dklynn's site http://datakoncepts.com/seo
Believe me, you do NOT want the regex to say
beginning with anything and everything (that includes slashes too) followed by a slash followed by anything and everything (that includes slashes too) followed by a slash followed by anything and everything (that includes slashes too) etc etc ending with a slash.

[dklynn]

AMEN!

It's really frustrating to see (.*) routinely abused. I rant and rave and it does no good (okay, there are exceptions as a few do take the time to learn and they quickly see why it has limited appropriate use)!

There is ONE RULE at the heart of mod_rewrite: Regular Expressions (regex).

If you don't understand regex, don't use mod_rewrite!

90% or more of those who use (.*) just use that because they know it will match something, anything, or nothing at all) only do so because they don't understand regex. These people should not use mod_rewrite!

How's that for another rant?

Regards,

DK

[Vadim22]

Please do yourself a favor and take a look at dklynn's site http://datakoncepts.com/seo

Awesome reading, exactly what i was looking for.

Thanks a lot!