simple mod_rewrite question??

[mvd]

Hi there

I wanted to redirect urls such as www.domain.com/folder
or
www.domain.com/folder/

to a file:
display.php?category=folder

I have managed to do this with mod_rewrite, however I dont know how to deal with the case if there is no trailing slash..

Here is what I used

RewriteRule ^([a-z]*)/$ display.php?category=$1

I just need a way to direct them to the same place whether they use a trailing slash or not.....

Any help is greatly appreciated....

[randem]

RewriteRule ^([a-z]*)/?$ display.php?category=$1

In regular expressions, the question mark makes the previous character optional.

[mvd]

hey thanks again randem......

That works fine for the folder structure, but if I use that and then type the domain name.....
ie: www.domain.com, that is also being redirected to the display.php.....

How would I get around that........

cheers

[randem]

RewriteRule ^/([a-z]*)/?$ display.php?category=$1

Okay, now there's a slash required at the front of the URI.

I'm not sure if mod_rewrite starts from the domain name or from the URI, having never used it myself. If it starts from the domain name, you could use this:

RewriteRule ^www.yoursite.com/([a-z]*)/?$ display.php?category=$1


Curious, though... does this redirect the browser, or does it rewrite at the server? Seems to me that if it were redirecting the browser, you'd get a never-ending loop of redirection.