Can we use httpd.conf instead of .htaccess for clean URL?

Question

I have read that setting changes in httpd.conf are much better as compared to making changes in .htaccess as the later one is parsed at Runtime while .conf is parsed at the time of starting Apache. So, is it possible to have all the .htaccess functionality in httpd.conf or there are a few things that have to done in .htaccess only.

Also, can you suggest how to debug clean URL issues?

Basically, I am not able to get the clean URL working. I can access the show.php file but am not able to access the GET variables. Here is the .conf settings.

RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST}   !^www\.example\.com [NC]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST}   !^$
RewriteRule ^/show/([^/\.]+)/([^/\.]+)         http://www.example.com/show.php?id=$1&img=$2 [L,R]

I have also added

Options Indexes MultiViews FollowSymlinks
AllowOverride All

in <Directory "/var/www/html">

Thanks.

Answer 1

As stated in the Apache manual on .htaccess , anything you can put in an .htaccess file can be put inside a <Directory> block within httpd.conf for better efficiency.

As for your issues with rewriting the URL, your first RewriteCond appears to only be matching URLs that aren't www.example.com (the ! in front is a negation modifier). Remove the ! and see if that fixes the issue. (You probably should remove the second RewriteCond as well, until you have the first one matching; otherwise, debugging problems will be more difficult.)