Redirect all to index.php using htaccess

Question

Your rewrite rule looks almost ok.

First make sure that your .htaccess file is in your document root (the same place as index.php) or it'll only affect the sub-folder it's in (and any sub-folders within that - recursively).

Next make a slight change to your rule so it looks something like:

RewriteEngine on
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ /index.php?path=$1 [NC,L,QSA]

At the moment you're just matching on . which is one instance of any character, you need at least .* to match any number of instances of any character.

The $_GET['path'] variable will contain the fake directory structure, so /mvc/module/test for instance, which you can then use in index.php to determine the Controller and actions you want to perform.

If you want the whole shebang installed in a sub-directory, such as /mvc/ or /framework/ the least complicated way to do it is to change the rewrite rule slightly to take that into account.

RewriteRule ^(.*)$ /mvc/index.php?path=$1 [NC,L,QSA]

And ensure that your index.php is in that folder whilst the .htaccess file is in the document root.

Alternative to $_GET['path'] (updated Feb '18 and Jan '19)

It's not actually necessary (nor even common now) to set the path as a $_GET variable, many frameworks will rely on $_SERVER['REQUEST_URI'] to retrieve the same information - normally to determine which Controller to use - but the principle is exactly the same.

This does simplify the RewriteRule slightly as you don't need to create the path parameter (which means the OP's original RewriteRule will now work):

RewriteEngine on
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteRule ^.*$ /index.php [L,QSA]

However, the rule about installing in a sub-directory still applies, e.g.

RewriteRule ^.*$ /mvc/index.php [L,QSA]

---

The flags:

NC = No Case (not case sensitive, not really necessary since there are no characters in the pattern)

L = Last (it'll stop rewriting at after this Rewrite so make sure it's the last thing in your list of rewrites)

QSA = Query String Append, just in case you've got something like ?like=penguins on the end which you want to keep and pass to index.php.

To redirect everything that doesnt exist to index.php , you can also use the FallBackResource directive

FallbackResource /index.php

It works same as the ErrorDocument , when you request a non-existent path or file on the server, the directive silently forwords the request to index.php .

If you want to redirect everything (including existant files or folders ) to index.php , you can use something like the following :

RewriteEngine on

RewriteRule ^((?!index\.php).+)$ /index.php [L]

Note the pattern ^((?!index\.php).+)$ matches any uri except index.php we have excluded the destination path to prevent infinite looping error.

There is one "trick" for this problem that fits all scenarios, a so obvious solution that you will have to try it to believe it actually works... :)

Here it is...

<IfModule mod_rewrite.c>

   RewriteEngine On

   RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME}  -f [OR]
   RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
   RewriteRule ^(.*)$ index.php [L,QSA]

</IfModule>

Basically, you are asking MOD_REWRITE to forward to index.php the URI request always when a file exists AND always when the requested file doesn't exist!

When investigating the source code of MOD-REWRITE to understand how it works I realized that all its checks always happen after the verification if the referenced file exists or not. Only then the RegEx are processed. Even when your URI points to a folder, Apache will enforce the check for the index files listed in its configuration file.

Based on that simple discovery, turned obvious a simple file validation would be enough for all possible calls, as far as we double-tap the file presence check and route both results to the same end-point, covering 100% of the possibilities.

IMPORTANT: Notice there is no "/" in index.php. By default, MOD_REWRITE will use the folder it is set as "base folder" for the forwarding. The beauty of it is that it doesn't necessarily need to be the "root folder" of the site, allowing this solution work for localhost/ and/or any subfolder you apply it.

Ultimately, some other solutions I tested before (the ones that appeared to be working fine) broke the PHP ability to "require" a file via its relative path, which is a bummer. Be careful.

Some people may say this is an inelegant solution. It may be, actually, but as far as tests, in several scenarios, several servers, several different Apache versions, etc., this solution worked 100% on all cases!

You can use something like this:

RewriteEngine on
RewriteRule ^.+$ /index.php [L]

This will redirect every query to the root directory's index.php. Note that it will also redirect queries for files that exist, such as images, javascript files or style sheets.