Posted: 28 September 2008 at 10:18am | IP Logged

Hello.

Let me say first off that you product is just awesome - considering it works in MS environment (although I am using Lite version...still).

I have some questions on how to proceed on using rewrite engine. I have been experimenting with regexps and have read trough almost every post. I am still just a newbie and much in a need of help - reg-ex are still quite some mystery to me

I have some basic question on how to proceed by using rewrite on my site. Basically, I would like to rewrite my blog articles, categories, tags and perhaps static pages. I see that there are many ways on how to accomplish that. This is my idea - so please correct me on any step...

..my articles are taken from database like this: default.asp?display=1

to have it displayed like: /articles/now-this-is-a-test/, I have been using this settings:

Code: RewriteMap mapfile txt:mapfile.txt} RewriteRule ^articles/([^?/]+)/ /default.asp?display=${mapfile:$1}

This work just fine - I have appropriate entries in mapfile.txt - it still works if I just enter default.asp?display=1 - so now problems here yet.

Now I have some questions - to better differentiate site rewrite rules, I am to use more mapfiles - one for articles, one for categories, one for tags right? Is there a better way to do it?
Also, this is not possible without mapfiles? I am asking this because I have some Linux sites and rewrite engine also turned on - for eg. Wordpress uses this mod (directly from apache) - does it also store this mapfile somewhere? How does it manage to rewrite it if not? <- strike this - I found its rewrite slugs to be in database - it seems that it selects data from it, and rewrites afterwards, dunno how..
Also there is some integration question - If I am to use this extension in live production site, and if I add new article, how do I setup automatisation of this rewrite process? I mean I can make my code to append new lines into mapfile.txt - just not sure if this is the best solution. Any suggestion/change would be greatly appreciated.

Will have some more questions later - I hope I can count on your help. Thank you for now, later.

Posted: 29 September 2008 at 7:57am | IP Logged

Aham. So I figured. So to have this done in production, the best way to accomplish this is like this:

1. I add an article, it is stored in the database with all the relevant data, for now article ID and slug data: "25" and "test-test-test",
2. an subscript writes into a text file, that holds the map entries for the rewriting rules, it writes: "test-test-test 25",
3. then, when I display articles on the main site, instead of looping trough article links, I display slugs for links and not article IDs anymore,
4. the mapfile and rewrite does all the other work.

Now for eg.:

 add article -> article ID is 25
 OLD: trough loop code on main site, link to article is displayed like "http://www.mysite.org/?display=25"
 I save slug data - the title of the article that is "test-test-test"
 NEW :I then display THAT slug data for link to article instead of querystring like this "http://www.mysite.org/articles/test-test-test/"
 the article is then processed trough mapfile redirect/rewrite(still not quite sure how to use either in different situation)

Did I get it all right?
Or do I have yet to uncover some magic that all current and relevant links get "transformed" and/or rewritten automatically?
I mean - if I go over a link with mouse right now, there is old link with querystring - I want to get all those links to display my mapfile names/slugs instead of querystrings.
I ask this as I want to know just how to proceed on transforming existing data - I get it on the new applications, where you decide from the beginning if you want to have rewriting done or not - but what with the old ones?
I mean I know I can add certain rules and the articles are assessable trough new link names as well as still from querystring calls. I wish to make it all with new names...

Hope I was not too long and too unclear :)

Posted: 29 September 2008 at 8:59am | IP Logged

Great. That is good to hear, because I really did not wish to make all manual changes to every link I have on the site. Thank you for all your time for now. I am sure I will have many more questions and needs for assistance.