How to turn dynamic URL into static URL

Question

I am developing a website using PHP and Apache. I wanna turn my URLs from

www.example.com/book.php?book=title

into something like this, if it is possible of course:

www.example.com/book/title

Notice that the title of the books are unique and cannot be repeated.

I`ve read about this, but none of the posts were clear enough for a beginner like me. Do you guys know any tutorial that explains that?

Thanks.

Answer 1

Here's the way kohana (and 99.99% of php frameworks) does it

Add an .htaccess file(if using apache)

# Turn on URL rewriting
RewriteEngine On

RewriteBase /

# Allow any files or directories that exist to be displayed directly
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d

# Rewrite all other URLs to index.php/URL
RewriteRule .* index.php/$0 [PT,L]

This redirects all urls to index.php. index.php will be some sort of front controller that loads scripts based on the url

So in your example:

localhost/book/title

index.php would be loaded. It would go into the url and get the page (controller) to load that will actually do all the work. in this case maybe books.php. books.php would get the title of the book from the url and then search a database or do whatever it has to with that name.