Redirect rule in .htaccess is taking me to the wrong place

Question

I'm having trouble with redirecting urls using the .htaccess file. This is what my .htaccess file looks like:

Redirect 301 /file-name/example.php http://www.mysite.com/file-name/example-001.php
Redirect 301 /section-name/example.php http://www.my-site.com/section-name/example-002.php

RewriteEngine on
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} !^www.mysite.com$ [NC]
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://www.mysite.com/$1 [L,R=301]
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteRule ^(.+)/(.*)$ hqtemplates/articles.php?file_name=$2 [L]
php_value session.use_only_cookies 1
php_value session.use_trans_sid 0

Now the problem is that when I go to page: www.my-site.com/file-name/example.php, instead of redirecting me to www.my-site.com/file-name/example-001.php it redirects me to www.my-site.com/file-name/example.php?file_name=example-001.php.

For some reason it adds "?file_name=example-001.php" to the url. Does anyone know why this is happening and how to fix it?

Answer 1

the problem is mixing mod_alias redirect rules with mod_rewrite. the solution is to stick to one. this is a solution for a pure mod_rewrite only approach (i have included only relevant portions to the issue):

RewriteEngine on
# emulate specific mod_alias Redirect rules
#
# Flags explanation:
#   [L] = last rule, stop processing further rules
#   [R=301] = 301 Redirect
#
RewriteRule ^file-name/example.php$ http://www.mysite.com/file-name/example-001.php [L,R=301]
RewriteRule ^section-name/example.php$ http://www.my-site.com/section-name/example-002.php [L,R=301]

# handle other rewrite requests
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteRule ^(.+)/(.*)$ hqtemplates/articles.php?file_name=$2 [L]

as to what's happening in your .htaccess, here's the rewrite log:

(2) rewrite 'file-name/example.php' -> \
        'hqtemplates/articles.php?file_name=example.php'
(2) strip document_root prefix: /home/test/hqtemplates/articles.php -> \
         /hqtemplates/articles.php
(1) internal redirect with /hqtemplates/articles.php [INTERNAL REDIRECT]
(1) pass through /home/test/Sites/file-name/example-001.php

which suggests:

1. apply mod_rewrite "RewriteRule ^(.+)/(.*)$ hqtemplates..."
2. file-name/example.php is now equivalent to hqtemplates/articles.php?file_name=example.php
3. apply mod_alias "Redirect 301..."
4. show final file-name/example-001.php?file_name=example.php