How could I create profile url's similar to what myspace has?

Hello, I'm not sure whether this should have been in the .htaccess forum, or in here.

Basically, I'm trying to create url's similar to the way myspace does it.

Say a users profile is: /viewprofile.php?userid=56
And that users username is: Testaccount

I'm looking for a way to be able to redirect www.mysite.com/testaccount to www.mysite.com/viewprofile.php?userid=56

If anyone has a solution, it would be appreciated much!
Thanks!

 

This is done by using switches in php, an if and else statement may work as well but a switch is more efficient.

 

Edit:
I managed to get something working.

It involves using the 404 error page, though, which I'm not sure how it will affect the SEO of my website.

Basically, I have my 404 error page using a script such as:

include('../_inc/connect.php');
function curPageURL() {
 $pageURL = 'http';
 if ($_SERVER["HTTPS"] == "on") {$pageURL .= "s";}
 $pageURL .= "://";
 if ($_SERVER["SERVER_PORT"] != "80") {
  $pageURL .= $_SERVER["SERVER_NAME"].":".$_SERVER["SERVER_PORT"].$_SERVER["REQUEST_URI"];
 } else {
  $pageURL .= $_SERVER["SERVER_NAME"].$_SERVER["REQUEST_URI"];
 }
 return $pageURL;
}

$url = curPageURL();
$userurl = explode("site.com/", $url);

$getId = mysql_query("SELECT * FROM SK_users WHERE username='$userurl[1]'");
$row = mysql_fetch_array($getId);
	$id = $row['id'];
mysql_close();

Header('location: ../viewprofile.php?userid='.$id.'');

PHP:

When a person types something such as:
www.mysite.com/Username

It will search for the username 'Username' in the database, grab it's ID, and redirect properly.
I should be able to come up with a way to separate error pages from user profiles, with a bit of algorithm & coding.

Any suggestions from anyone?
Thanks!

 

If you're interested in doing this an even better way (without the need for redirects, so your URL stays/looks just "www.mysite.com/testaccount" and works just like "www.mysite.com/viewprofile.php?userid=56" would):

Take a look at mod_rewrite. No messy php required, does all the magic.

 

Would this allow me to access the MySQL database & find the correct userid to redirect to?

Thanks!

 

keyaa is correct just use the mod_rewrite in .htacess file to do this

 

i don't think htaccess can access the MySQL database am i right?

But what u can do is: in your htaccess, pass this url

to

Anyway, this is not redirect. and the url stay as www.mysite.com/testaccount

The viewprofile.php file would contain the sql query that SELECT data FROM yourtable WHERE username is the $_GET['user']and display it

 

MOD rewrite is an apache tool..

www.yoursite.com/56

would be the it, unless you changed the id too name or whatever.