Multiple htaccess rewrite rule

Question

here is my code for .htaccess file

Options -Indexes
RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %(REQUEST_FILENAME) !-f
RewriteCond %(REQUEST_FILENAME) !-d
RewriteRule ^([a-z0-9]+)$ /profile.php?username=$1 [L]
RewriteRule ^([a-z0-9]+)$ /display.php?page=$1 [L]

For the first one it works correctly and is displaying like this: www.site.com/user

The second one is not working, normally is displaying like this www.site.com/display.php?page=10. I want to display the page like this www.site.com/article I tried different things and no result. Please tell me how to make to work with multiple rules. Also please give me an advice on how to use this functionalities in php because I think I done something not really good. My php code for using this rule is:

<p><a class="button" href="/<?php echo $user_data['username']; ?>"> Profile</a></p>

It works, but maybe is a better way to make a link to take advantage of htaccess.

Answer 1

The two rules that you have conflict, the patterns used are exactly the same, which means, other than the conditions which only get applied to the first rule, the two rules are completely indistinguishable.

Given this URL:

http://www.site.com/blah

Is "blah" a page or a user? Can't tell, because the regex pattern (^([a-z0-9]+)$) for both rules matches "blah". So, the first one will always get applied no matter what. You need to add something to distinguish between the 2, like including a "user" or "page" in the URL:

http://www.site.com/user/blah
http://www.site.com/page/bleh

And your rules would look like:

Options -Indexes
RewriteEngine On

RewriteCond %(REQUEST_FILENAME) !-f
RewriteCond %(REQUEST_FILENAME) !-d
RewriteRule ^user/([a-z0-9]+)$ /profile.php?username=$1 [L]

RewriteCond %(REQUEST_FILENAME) !-f
RewriteCond %(REQUEST_FILENAME) !-d
RewriteRule ^page/([a-z0-9]+)$ /display.php?page=$1 [L]

Answer 2

Options -Indexes
RewriteEngine On

RewriteCond %(REQUEST_FILENAME) !-f
RewriteCond %(REQUEST_FILENAME) !-d
RewriteRule ^user/([a-z0-9]+)$ /profile.php?username=$1 [N]
RewriteRule ^page/([a-z0-9]+)$ /display.php?page=$1 [L]

use [N] (next) continue adding rules to the same condition and [L] (last) to identify the last rule