Mod rewrite: redirect on trailing slash

Question

I have a .htaccess file in which I'm attempting to redirect requests to

/something/

to

/something

...after which a second rule should run which turns

/something

...into

/index.php?foo=something

Here's my .htaccess:

RewriteEngine on

#rule 1 - disallow trailing slash
RewriteRule ^([a-z\-]+)\/$ $1

#rule 2 - main redirect
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !(inc/) [NC]
RewriteRule ^[a-z\-]+$ index.php?foo=$0

Both rules take effect correctly, but the redirect in the first rule goes to a 404 and I can't see why. The correct flow should be:

• Request URL: http://localhost/mysite/something/ Gets redirected to:
• http://localhost/mysite/something (via 1st rule) Gets redirected to:
• http://localhost/mysite/index.php?foo=something (via 2nd rule)

Any idea what I'm doing wrong?

Answer 1

You need an R flag to redirect:

DirectorySlash Off
RewriteEngine on

#rule 1 - disallow trailing slash
RewriteRule ^([a-z\-]+)\/$ $1 [L,R]

#rule 2 - main redirect
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !(inc/) [NC]
RewriteRule ^[a-z\-]+$ index.php?foo=$0

Also, you may need to turn DirectorySlash off, because mod_dir will automatically append trailing slashes to diretories. If you dont turn that off, it might cause a redirect loop.

Additionally, you may also need a RewriteBase directive if these rules are in an htaccess file that isn't in your document root.

RewriteBase /

for document root, but in your question you have URLs that look like http://localhost/mysite/something/ and if the rules are in /mysite/ you need:

RewriteBase /mysite/