Make web root folder a sub-folder with .htaccess?

.htaccess, directory, mod-rewrite

Solution

If you don't have access to your host configuration

`DocumentRoot` can only be used in server and virtual host configs, .htaccess it must be.

Let's add directives in your .htaccess

RewriteEngine on

I assume you want to let the requests to /assets go through

#if a match for asset is found, do nothing
RewriteRule ^assets/ - [L]

If a request tries to access `/php/views/pages/` directly, redirect it to its canonical version

RewriteCond %{THE_REQUEST} php/views/pages/
RewriteRule ^php/views/pages/(.*) http://mydomain.com/$1 [R=301,L]

And add a rule to map everything else to `/php/views/pages/`

RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !php/views/pages/
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ /php/views/pages/$1 [L]

If you have access to your host configuration

Forget about .htaccess files and use it. A sample configuration could look like

# ~base stands for your original DocumentRoot
<VirtualHost *:80>
    DocumentRoot ~base/php/views/pages
    Alias /assets ~base/assets

    # other configuration parameters
</VirtualHost>

Problem

I'm working on a pretty complex project, so I'd like to go with a file/folder structure that makes sense. The folder/file structure I'd like to have is: ``` .htaccess /php/ /assets/ ``` I'd like to have the web pages that people will access in: ``` /php/views/pages/ ``` I'm wondering if it's possible to use just `.htaccess` to set `/php/views/pages` as the "viewable root", so that for example, when people visit `http://mydomain.com/` they'll be viewing `http://mydomain.com/php/views/pages/index.php`, and if so, how would I go about doing it? Also, is it possible to canonicalize all access to `/php/views/pages` using `.htaccess` and a 301 redirect to stop multiple links being indexed in search engines?

Original source