Mod Rewrite ENDLESS LOOP headache

Hi

Just a beginner with all this mod rewrite stuff!

I've been looking for a solution for days without any luck!

I want to redirect the url

example.com/catalogue.php?ctn=whatever (the page cached in search engine)

TO

example.com/catalogue/whatever.html

Which is quite easy like so:

RewriteRule ^catalogue/([^/]*)\.html$ /catalogue.php?ctn=$1 [L]


The problem is
you can still go to catalogue.php?ctn=whatever which is also cached in search engine indexes.
So I need to redirect - issue a 301 from
catalogue.php?ctn=whatever
TO
catalogue/whatever.html
WITHOUT ENDING UP IN A NEVER ENDING LOOP BECAUSE OF THE 1ST RULE

HELP

 

Put something like this at the top of your catalogue.php:

$ctn = $_GET["ctn"];
if ($ctn > '') {
      header("HTTP/1.1 301 Moved Permanently");
      header("Location: http://www.yoursite.com/catalogue/" . $ctn . ".html");
      exit;
}

Code (markup):

 

Thanks for the reply.

If I put the above code in my php file it will redirect to the html page right?

Will the first rewite rule kick in again and redirect back to the php page and so on....

 

Should work fine. I basically copied this from an osCommerce site I maintain where I had to do this very same thing.

It shouldn't give you any problems, but if it does, there is another way to accomplish it and I can help you code that as well.

 

Will try and post back results!
Thanks

 

No, that didnt work!

It just doesnt do anything!

 

OK

Error I get is 'server will never finish redirecting', so its ending up in a loop again!

 

Why don't you rename the catalog.php to cataglognew.php and then do something like...

RewriteRule ^catalogue.php?ctn=([^/]*)$ /catalogue/$1.html [R=301,L]
RewriteRule ^catalogue/([^/]*)\.html$ /cataloguenew.php?ctn=$1 [L]

 

I have to say...

Y didnt i think of that!!!!!

Will try and follow up!

Thanks

 

zak, another way to accomplish this:

  $url = explode('=',$_SERVER['REQUEST_URI']);
  $ctn = $url[1];
  if ($ctn > "") {
    header("HTTP/1.1 301 Moved Permanently");
    header("Location: http://www.yoursite.com/catalogue/" . $ctn . ".html");
    exit;
  }

Code (markup):

 

Here is one kind of solution to issue 301 redirect for direct file requests.

 

OK, got it working and its quite a simple way to do it

copy catalogue.php to catalog.php or any other name you like.

change your existing rewrite rule to

RewriteRule ^catalogue/([^/]*)\.html$ /catalog.php?ctn=$1 [L]

Code (markup):

then add

RewriteCond %{SCRIPT_FILENAME} catalogue\.php
RewriteCond %{QUERY_STRING} ctn=([^/]*)
RewriteRule ^.*$ http://www.example.co.uk/catalogue/%1.html? [R=301]

Code (markup):

self explanatory