[pmwiki-users] lots of problems when redirecting or rewriting URLs

[DaveG]

The whole thing is pretty clear to me now! Based on the idea of moving 
.htaccess up to the root directory, I've now managed to get URL's:
    From: http://dom.com/~nepherim/pmwiki/Home/HomePage/
    To:   http://dom.com/~nepherim/Main/HomePage

I'm having a problem (URL not found) with Editing, Uploading, and 
History links (strangely Searching works fine).

I used this .htaccess inside "http://dom.com/~nepherim/":
    Options +FollowSymLinks
    RewriteEngine on
    RewriteBase /~nepherim/
    RewriteCond %{QUERY_STRING} ^$
    RewriteRule ^([^/a-z].*) index.php?n=$1 [QSA,L]

I put an index.php inside "http://dom.com/~nepherim/":
    <?php chdir('pmwiki'); include 'pmwiki.php';

And I used these settings in config.php:
    $BaseUrl = 'http://'.$_SERVER[HTTP_HOST].'/~nepherim';
    $ScriptUrl = $BaseUrl;
    $PubDirUrl = $BaseUrl.'/pmwiki/pub';
    $ImgDirUrl = $ScriptUrl.'/pmwiki/img';
    $UploadUrlFmt = $BaseUrl.'/pmwiki/uploads';


  ~ ~ Dave

DaveG wrote:
> I'm really getting confused, so I'm going to start from basics, going 
> line by line through my current script and try to explain what little I 
> understand to this point. Hopefully that will help educate those of us 
> up in the back rows :)
> 
>  From there maybe the light will shine on how to remove that last little 
> "pmwiki" (in fact I don't really care about that, I just want to 
> understand this damn thing!).
> 
> Any alterations or clarifications are welcome, and then I'll write all 
> this up on a new wiki page for all to see.
> 
> *Addendum:* As I was writing this, a *lot* became clear. The main thing 
> I realized is that the intent of the .htaccess script is to change URLs 
> FROM simple format INTO complex format (refer to definitions below). 
> Pmwiki handles the conversion FROM complex format INTO simple format 
> that is shown on the browser address bar. I had assumed the exact 
> reverse, ie the script processes FROM complex to SIMPLE!
> 
> --- *Questions*
> 1] What does $EnablePathInfo = 1; actually do? I think it:
>     a) rewrites URL's on wiki pages to the simple format;
>     b) rewrites the browser address bar URL to the simple format;
> 
>     Thus, the rewrites only need to convert from incoming simple format 
> to the complex format so that PHP and thus Pmwiki can handle the request.
> 
> 
> --- *Definitions*
> In the text below, I'll use:
>   - "complex URL": URL's in the format "/pmwiki.php?n=Main.HomePage".
> 
>   - "simple URL": URL's in the format "/Main/HomePage".
> 
> 
> --- *Background*
> PHP needs incoming URL's to be of the complex format in order to process 
> them correctly. PHP (and thus pmwiki) cannot handle or process simple 
> URLs, as there is no way to know which parts of the URL are parameters. 
> Thus, the rules in .htaccess convert from simple format to complex format.
> 
> 
> --- *Analysis*
> 2] Here's the line by line script analysis, assuming the user enters a 
> simple URL:
>     http://dom.com/~nepherim/pmwiki/Main/HomePage
> 
> and here's the complex URL we need to convert into so PHP can process:
>     http://dom.com/~nepherim/pmwiki/pmwiki.php?n=Main.HomePage
> 
> Pmwiki will handle the the conversion of the "complex URL" back into the 
> simple format we will see in the browser address bar.
> 
> #
>     Options +FollowSymLinks
> Follow existing symbolic links. (Need more detail here.)
> 
> #
>     RewriteEngine on
> Turn on the rewrite engine.
> 
> #
>     RewriteBase /~nepherim/pmwiki/
> Strip out this part of the url, and leave us with whatever follows. 
> Thus, from "http://dom.com/~nepherim/pmwiki/Main/HomePage" we now have 
> "Main/HomePage".
> 
> #
>     RewriteCond %{QUERY_STRING} ^$
> Something to enable searching. What I'm not sure of is what condition 
> needs to be satisfied to execute the following rewrite.
> (RewriteCond is basically an IF statement -- if the condition evaluates 
> to true (AND RewriteCond's immediately following evaluate to true) then 
> execute the next RewruteRule directive.)
> 
> #
>     RewriteRule ^/?$ ~nepherim/pmwiki/Main/HomePage/ [R=permanent,QSA,L]
> Alter URLs with a trailing "/" or with no trailing "/" to the HomePage. 
> Thus, user entered URLs of "~nepherim/pmwiki" or "~nepherim/pmwiki/" 
> translate to "~nepherim/pmwiki/Main/HomePage/".
> 
> R=permenant: tell the browser that this redirect is permenant. Default 
> is Temporary.
> 
> QSA: Query String Append. If we have queries on the incomming URL, like 
>   "?action=edit" then append them to our new URL.
> 
> L: Stop processing. In this case the next RewriteRule doesn't get 
> processed, and we're done.
> *** Question: I must be misunderstanding this parameter. Why do we stop? 
> If we stop here then we haven't converted to complex format.
> 
> #
>     RewriteRule ^([^/a-z].*) pmwiki.php?n=$1 [QSA,L]
> Here we're matching anything which is NOT a lowercase letter (a-z) 
> followed by anything else. What this means in practice is that we're 
> finding the pmwiki group and page name, since pmwiki groups always start 
> with an uppercase character.
> 
> (Differentiating between upper and lower case also prevents the 
> processing of any internal pmwiki paths that are being used to create 
> the page, like pub, upload, etc.)
> 
> The first non-lowercase character we find in "Main/HomePage" is the 
> first "M", so we take that and everything after: "Main/HomePage".
> 
> This string is referenced by "$1". So, the Rewrite Rule replaces our 
> "Main/HomePage" with "pmwiki.php?n=Main.HomePage".
> 
> As we are done with the script, the Base part of the URL 
> ("/~nepherim/pmwiki/") is now added back to what we created, so we end 
> up with the complex URL PHP and pmwiki needs:
>     /~nepherim/pmwiki/pmwiki.php?n=Main.HomePage
> 
>   ~ ~ Dave
> 
> 
> 
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