The objective is to input an url like
https://www.mywebsite/expert/188/name-of-the-expert
and return it to the server in the form
expert.php?exp=188
Like if the user typed in https://www.mywebsite/expert.php?exp=188
WHAT DOES NOT WORK:
simple rules like RewriteRule ^expert-([0-9]*)$ expert.php?exp=$1 [L,NC,QSA]
WHAT WORK I have the following rewrite_rule that works only when I physically create the folder expert/ in my tree, i.e. /www/expert/
# FRIENDLY URL FOR EXPERTS PROFILE
Rewriterule ^(.*)expert\/([0-9]*)(\/[a-z0-9\-\']*)?\/?$ expert.php?exp=$2 [L,NC,QSA]
Also, for this rule to work, I had to put the <base href="/"> in the page expert.php to avoid errors with all my linked resources:
Failed to load resource: the server responded with a status of 404 ()
The server is APACHE on a shared web hosting platform named OVH.
The full code of the issue:
<IfModule mod_rewrite.c>
RewriteEngine On
Options +FollowSymlinks
RewriteBase /
# FRIENDLY URL FOR EXPERTS PROFILE
Rewriterule ^(.*)expert\/([0-9]*)(\/[a-z0-9\-\']*)?\/?$ expert.php?exp=$2 [L,NC,QSA]
</IfModule>
Have it like this with MultiViews turned off:
Options +FollowSymlinks -MultiViews
RewriteEngine On
RewriteBase /
# FRIENDLY URL FOR EXPERTS PROFILE
Rewriterule ^/?expert/(\d+)/?$ expert.php?exp=$1 [L,NC,QSA]
Option MultiViews (see http://httpd.apache.org/docs/2.4/content-negotiation.html) is used by Apache's content negotiation module that runs before mod_rewrite and makes Apache server match extensions of files. So if /file is the URL then Apache will serve /file.html.