apache, allow filenames with '?'

Question

I want to make a static copy of a site, retaining existing URLs. The problem is that the URLs looked like: http://mysite/index.php?id=XXX and Apache does not want to find the file "index.php?id=XXX". Instead, it interprets the request as the file "index.php" with the query "id=XXX". How can I ask Apache to stop handling the question mark? Finally, my solution: 1) rename the files from "index.php?id=XXX" to "index.php_id=XXX" 2) Add to .htaccess: ``` RewriteEngine On RewriteCond %{ENV:REDIRECT_STATUS} ="" RewriteCond %{QUERY_STRING} !="" RewriteRule ^(.*)$ $1_%{QUERY_STRING} [L] ```

Accepted Answer

Escape the `?` as `%3f`: `http://www.example.com/index.php%3fid=XXX`.

If you list the file in a directory that has indexes on, Apache will correctly generate links of this format. You must, however, rewrite the links in the existing pages.

apache, allow filenames with '?'

Solution

Problem