I use mod_rewrite a a fair amount, and for something like this, I'd do: 
RewriteRule ^/(news|ftp|http)/([^/]+)/([\d]+)$ \ 
            /index.pl?type=$1&feed=$1://$2&limit=$3

[download]

I could be wrong about this, but the reason in my mind for using this little bit of voodoo is that .* will match from the second character to the end of the uri, leaving $2 and $3 undefined. ([^/]+)/([^/]+) is analogous to using (\w+)\W+(\w+) to pick out 2 series of non-spaces bracketing a length of whitespace.

In reply to Re: mod_rewrite + CGI.pm in "reverse"? by cleverett
in thread mod_rewrite + CGI.pm in "reverse"? by hacker

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