How do I set up the hosts file for multiple domains/hosts with the same IP?

As you surely know you can map host names to IP addresses with the "hosts" file. This is very useful especially when you are developing as you can change localhost for project1.

That part is clear, but unfortunately I can't figure out how to set this up to open multiple projects with the same IP. I've tried a few things without success such as:

127.0.0.1/projects/project1  project1
127.0.0.1/projects/project2  project2

I checked some related questions but I couldn't find an answer. So, can I accomplish what I'm trying to do somehow? Any suggestions?

Solution

I got this resolved thanks to Google and the collaborators, @jvilhena and @DRC. Here's how I did it:

If you are using Windows and XAMPP as in my case the first step is to set up the 'hosts' file. If you are using Windows it's likely that you will find it in C:\Windows\System32\drivers\etc\hosts. You can use any text editor to edit it.

You can set up as many host names as you like all pointing to your localhost, with the IP, 127.0.0.1.

For example:

 127.0.0.1               local.project1
 127.0.0.1               local.project2
 127.0.0.1               youcanuseany.name.here

The second step was to deal with the Apache file httpd-vhosts.conf. Again, I'm using Windows and XAMPP. It's likely this file will be in C:\xampp\apache\conf\extra\httpd-vhosts.conf.

You don't have to but I like to keep my project folders in my htdocs folder @ C:\xampp\htdocs.

For each project that you create a "host name" for, you should add the following to your httpd-vhosts.conf file:

<VirtualHost *>
    DocumentRoot "C:\xampp\htdocs\projectx"
    ServerName youcanuseany.name.here
    <Directory "C:\xampp\htdocs\projectx">
        Order allow,deny
        Allow from all
    </Directory>
</VirtualHost>

One more example just for the sake of it :)

<VirtualHost *>
    DocumentRoot "C:\xampp\htdocs\project1"
    ServerName local.project1
    <Directory "C:\xampp\htdocs\project1">
        Order allow,deny
        Allow from all
    </Directory>
</VirtualHost>

Now you can type local.project1 and youcanuseany.name.here in your browser and it should open your project as if you were typing localhost/project1 and localhost/projectX. I hope this helps.