Convert path to query string variable using mod_rewrite

Question

I am trying to make Apache send:
http://mydomain.com/these/are/arguments/mmmk

to:
http://mydomain.com/?pages=these/are/arguments/mmmk

Such that $_GET['pages'] will display these/are/arguments/mmmk.

I have set 'AllowEncodedSlashes' to On.

The rule needs to be able to handle trailing slashes, and when there is no subpages (like http://mydomain.com)

Does anyone know how to accomplish this task?

Answer 1

In order to not rewrite images/scripts you'll need to make sure the file or directory does not exist first in your .htaccess file

  RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
  RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d

  # Rewrite everything else through the pages parameter 
  RewriteRule ^(.+)$ /?pages=$1 [L]