Changing the root folder via .htaccess

Question

I've got a shared hosting account associated with a domain name and the root folder (correct me if that's the wrong term) is set to / so that all files on the server are public / accessible through the browser.

Can I use .htaccess or something to change the root folder to something like /example.com/public/?

Answer 1

If I'm understanding correctly, the following should work

RewriteEngine On

RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !^/public/
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ /public/$1 [L,R=301]

This will redirect all requests that do not begin with /public/ to URL that does.

Hope that helps.

Answer 2

The DocumentRoot directive can't be set in a .htaccess file, only in the server config. As you most likely don't have the privileges to modify the server settings your only solution is to use some rewrite magic as clmarquart already mentioned.