Repeating patterns in .htaccess?

[minitauros]

What I would like to do is to create a repeating pattern inside a rewriterule. For example:

RewriteRule ^([\w]+)/([\w]+)/(([\w]+)/([\w]+))*/?$ index.php?p=$1&s=$2(&$4=$5)*

Breaking it down:

On every page my ?p=BLA refers to a certain page, and every &s=BLA refers to a certain subpage. The rewriterule for this would obviously be:

RewriteRule ^([\w]+)/([\w]+)/?$ index.php?p=$1&s=$2

But now I want to add custom $_GET data to my url. For example I want to add &search=SEARCH, and I want to add &page=15, and anotherquery=BLA. The rewriterule I just wrote does not support this.

Is there any way to support an unspecified number of arguments in a rewriterule? For example by creating a repeating pattern? Because I don't know how many new arguments I want to add to the URL in advance.

[cwarn23]

Well it is possible to do if statements in regex like the following:

RewriteRule ^/?([\w]+)/(([\w]+)/(([\w]+)/(([\w]+)/(([\w]+)/(([\w]+)/(([\w]+)/|)|)|)|)|)|)$ index.php?a=$1&b=$3&c=$5&d=$7&e=$9&f=$11&g=$13

And in that regex up the 7 forward slashes may be used with [\w]+ between them. It will dynamically match from 1 forward slash to 7 foward slashes. But keep in mind for it to work you will need it to match [\w]+.

[somedude3488]

I have ran into this problem and I solve it by using php to handle this. Pretty much you send the entire url to a php page in a url variable.

Ex.

RewriteRule ^(.*)$ your_page.php?_url_=$1

Then with php you get the data and parse it yourself.

if ( isset( $_GET['_url_'] ) ) {
  //parse url
}

Worked great and still does in my custom mvc framework.

Maybe not the solution you are wanting, but will give you the flexibility you require.

[minitauros]

Well it is possible to do if statements in regex like the following:

RewriteRule ^/?([\w]+)/(([\w]+)/(([\w]+)/(([\w]+)/(([\w]+)/(([\w]+)/(([\w]+)/|)|)|)|)|)|)$ index.php?a=$1&b=$3&c=$5&d=$7&e=$9&f=$11&g=$13

And in that regex up the 7 forward slashes may be used with [\w]+ between them. It will dynamically match from 1 forward slash to 7 foward slashes. But keep in mind for it to work you will need it to match [\w]+.

Thanks for the answer, that's definitely good to know. However, I have never seen a | being used inside a regex (in that place, I have of course seen it being used inside a pattern with the meaning this "or" that). What's the use of it behind a section?

[minitauros]

I have ran into this problem and I solve it by using php to handle this. Pretty much you send the entire url to a php page in a url variable.

Ex.

RewriteRule ^(.*)$ your_page.php?_url_=$1

Then with php you get the data and parse it yourself.

if ( isset( $_GET['_url_'] ) ) {
  //parse url
}

Worked great and still does in my custom mvc framework.

Maybe not the solution you are wanting, but will give you the flexibility you require.

Very inventive. Might give it a try :). Thanks!

[cwarn23]

Thanks for the answer, that's definitely good to know. However, I have never seen a | being used inside a regex (in that place, I have of course seen it being used inside a pattern with the meaning this "or" that). What's the use of it behind a section?

Yes in regex it also acts as an "or" statement so you can have multiple regex patterns between the "or" statements.