How to modify htaccess url rewrite just how facebook does

Question

I want to automatically gather up a respective path name to the users input so for example with facebook.

A user creates a page/user profile with the name JohnDoe777 thus their url is: facebook.com/JohnDoe777.

How can one do that? I know it deals with the .htaccess file but I need careful instructions on how to do it so in case I don't mess anything up on my local server.

Answer 1

It is what we call URL rewriting.

You can find a good example here

http://www.addedbytes.com/articles/for-beginners/url-rewriting-for-beginners/

Answer 2

This has nothing to do with rewrite, although it may be done with rewrite rules.

In FaceBook, and a ton of other sites, you can access information just by what is typed on the URL by parsing that information on a PHP/ASP/JSP/perl/etc file. The idea is that when some data is stored, a unique URL is assigned to that set of data. Then the data can be accessed by using that URL.

This pseudocode helps to get the idea

data = false;

requested_url = 'http://www.example.com/JohnDoe777';

data_to_retrieve = JohnDoe777

check_if_data_in_database = query_the_database_for( 'JohnDoe777' );

if ( check_if_data_in_database === false ) {
    check_if_data_in_file = look_for_file( 'JohnDoe777' );
}

if ( data !== false ) {
    process_and_present_data( 'JohnDoe777' );
}

if ( data === false ) {
    tell_user_an_error_happened_or_no_data_available
}

Of course you can do a rewrite for something like

example.com/JohnDoe777

to

example.com/index.php?user=JohnDoe777

But both methods work for gathering/presenting data that has been created and stored and the rewrite step is just an extra, common, but not necessary.