htaccess RewriteCond & RewriteRule

Question

I've pulled most of whatever was left of my hair out on this one, and my feeling is that the answer is quite simple.

I have a URL:

https://www.example.com/?download= {rest of query string here}

and I want to rewrite that into

https://www.example.com/index.php?download= {rest of query string here}

The user doesn't need to be redirected. But I cannot figure this out. I tried 50 or 60 different things and I'm hoping someone can help.

Answer 1

Have you tried simply:

DirectoryIndex index.php

In the htaccess file in your document root?

Or try:

RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{QUERY_STRING} ^download=
RewriteRule ^$ /index.php [L]