URL Rewrite GET parameters
.htaccess, mod-rewrite
Solution
Add this to your `.htaccess` in your web root `/` directory
RewriteEngine on
RewriteBase /
RewriteRule ^home$ index.php?page=home&%{QUERY_STRING} [NC,L]
If you want this to work for all pages i.e. `/any-page` gets served as `index.php?page=any-page` then use
RewriteEngine on
RewriteBase /
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d # not a dir
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f # not a file
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ index.php?page=$1&%{QUERY_STRING} [NC,L]
How do these rules work?
A `RewriteRule` has the following syntax
RewriteRule [Pattern] [Substitution] [Flags]
The Pattern can use a regular expression and is matched against the part of the URL after the hostname and port (with the `.htaccess` placed in the root dir), but before any query string.
First Rule
The pattern `^home$` makes the first rule match the incoming URL `www.website.com/home`. The `%{QUERY_STRING}` simply captures and appends anything after `/home?` to the internally substituted URL `index.php?page=home`.
The flag `NC` simply makes the rule non case-sensitive, so that it matches `/Home` or `/HOME` as well. And `L` simply marks it as last i.e. rewriting should stop here in case there are any other rules defined below.
Second Rule
This one's just more generic i.e. if all of your site pages follow this URL pattern then instead of writing several rules, one for each page, we could just use this generic one.
The `.*` in the pattern `^(.*)$` matches `/any-page-name` and the parentheses help capture the `any-page-name` part as a `$1` variable used in the substitution URL as `index.php?page=$1`. The `&` in `page=home&` and `page=$1&` is simply the separator used between multiple query string field-value pairs.
Finally, the `%{QUERY_STRING}` and the `[NC,L]` flags work the same as in rule one.
Problem
I want my url to look like the following www.website.com/home&foo=bar&hello=world I only want the first get parameter to change However the actual "behind the scenes" url is this www.website.com/index.php?page=home&foo=bar&hello=world All tutorials I find change all of the parameters. Any help much appreciated!