Rewrite URL that matches a directory, has a specific HTTP query and does NOT have a specific HTTP query combination

Question

I've come across plenty of questions dealing with redirecting based on HTTP queries and of course matching partial parts of URLs however not both.

My directory structure looks like the following:

• http://localhost/common_parent/.htaccess
• http://localhost/common_parent/demo/themes/
• http://localhost/common_parent/themes/?ajax=1

The rewrite that I have works fine except it blocks the directory in the second list item:

RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !\.xml$
RewriteRule ^[^/].*/themes(.+) themes$1 [L]

Unfortunately both demo/themes/?ajax=1 and themes/?ajax=1 are both requested with the ajax HTTP query. However only the demo/themes/ is requested with a foo HTTP query.

• http://localhost/common_parent/demo/themes/?ajax=1&foo=bar
• http://localhost/common_parent/themes/?ajax=1

So in short how do I rewrite my rewrite to only apply if the ajax http query is present and simultaneously the foo http query is not present?

Answer 1

You can use rewrite rule like this:

# when ajax=<whatever> query parameter is present
RewriteCond %{QUERY_STRING} (?:^|&)ajax= [NC]
# when foo=<whatver> is not present
RewriteCond %{QUERY_STRING} !(?:^|&)foo= [NC]
# when URI is not ending with .xml
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !\.xml$ [NC]
# rewrite handler
RewriteRule ^[^/].*/themes(.+) themes$1 [L]