using htaccess to call a perl script

keiusui has asked for the wisdom of the Perl Monks concerning the following question:

Hello, I am currently using a RewriteRule in htaccess to internally call a Perl script. It works very well for making URLs search engine friendly. For example, when a user goes to:

http://www.mydomain.com/Bill_Gates

They are looking at information about Bill Gates, but they are really calling a script like:

http://www.mydomain.com/cgi-bin/display.pl?name=Bill_Gates

The RewriteRule looks like this:

RewriteRule ^([^/]+)?$ /cgi-bin/display.cgi?name=$1 [L]

This works well, but the htaccess also treats "http://www.mydomain.com/cgi-bin" as a username rediecting it to "http://www.mydomain.com/cgi-bin/display.cgi?name=cgi-bin".

How would I write the RewriteRule so that it calls the Perl script in all cases except when the username is "cgi-bin", "images", or some other common directory, while still treating names like "Bill_Gates" or "Steve_Jobs" as usernames?

Thanks in advance for any help on this.

Comment on using htaccess to call a perl script Download Code

Replies are listed 'Best First'.
Re: using htaccess to call a perl script by Anonymous Monk on Feb 26, 2010 at 23:59 UTC
This is FAQ for apache , so please hit up google / apache forum/docs	[reply]
Re: using htaccess to call a perl script by skx (Parson) on Feb 27, 2010 at 11:49 UTC
You could change your rule to be: RewriteRule ^/(._.)/?$ /cgi-bin/display.cgi?name=$1 L That way it'd only match if the part after the slash had a "_" in it.. Steve --	[reply]
Re: using htaccess to call a perl script by Skriptke (Acolyte) on Feb 28, 2010 at 10:55 UTC
Use RewriteCond http://httpd.apache.org/docs/2.0/mod/mod_rewrite.html If you include a very complicated regex, eventually you will find it difficult to handle, is better: RewriteCond -general case or regex- RewriteRule -action for general case- Then add case: RewriteCond -particular case or regex- RewriteRule -action for particular case- RewriteCond -general case or regex- RewriteRule -action for general case- No need to remember who did the regex	[reply]