PHP/Apache custom file type handling

Question

I'm wondering if it's possible to create custom file type handling for Apache that would be handled by a PHP file.

What I'm trying to accomplish, is to create a sort of custom .phps extension for reviewing code in the browser.

I'm using CodeMirror to display the code, but I'd like this process to be automated, as in I just change the .php extension to .phps , and some other .php file would handle that .phps file so I could inject the source code of that .phps file into a HTML file with CodeMirror.

I hope my goal is clear, I'm just wondering if it's at all possible.

Edit:

To clarify - I want to setup this rule to work from apache.conf, meaning that it would work across all the virtual hosts etc, not from a .htaccess file that would be required to be in every directory on the server.

I'm thinking this should work with FilesMatch within apache.conf, right now this is what I'm tinkering with:

<FilesMatch "\.phps$">
    SetHandler application/x-httpd-php
    RewriteEngine on
    RewriteRule ^(.*)$ /tools/code/?file=$1 [L]
</FilesMatch>

However I'm getting a 400 Bad Request error. I'd like to build on top of something like this, so that Apache would handle .phps files from within it's configuration, and not have to use .htaccess files within every directory on the server.

Answer 1

This certainly is possible, just take a look at the documentation. The way file type handlers work is well explained, take a look at the AddType command. However it is questionable if that is a good approach to what you describe as your goal, to visualize php source code. Wouldn't it be much easier and more elegant to use rewriting to hand over the requested file to a handler script which can "publish" it as you like?

For example you could use URLs like the following and internally rewrite it:

/source/path/to/file.php  => /path/to/handler.php?source=%2Fpath%2Fto%2Ffile.php

This could be done with apache rewriting module or in nginx using a general handler script:

RewriteEngine on
RewriteRule ^/source/(.)*$ /path/to/handler.php?source=$1 [L,B]

That way you don't have to define some local file type and can name php files to be shown just as what they are: php files. I mean a php file is a php file. The file name extension should reflect type of what is contained in the file, not how it should be handled. That would mean you mingle separate layers of logic.

That is much more transparent to users in my view. Also it allows more fine grained control about what URLs to rewrite and maybe some additional arguments to specify, where desired.

---

Two notes for the above rewrite rule:

• you may have to enable Apaches AllowEncodedSlashes to on , depending on your existing server setup
• you have to change the syntax slightly if you want to use the rewriting rule inside .htaccess style files (you have to remove the leading slashes, depending on where you place that file). But in general such files should be avoided whenever possible: they are notoriously error prone, hard to debug, sometimes cause unexpected side effects and really slow the server down. So if you have access to the servers host configuration you should prefer to place such rules in there.

Answer 2

Add bellow code in httpd.conf or vhost.conf and restart Apache server

<IfModule mime_module>
    AddType application/x-httpd-php .phps
</IfModule>

Or else you can use mod_rewrite

http://httpd.apache.org/docs/2.0/mod/mod_rewrite.html

Answer 3

OK I figured this out, here's what I did:

In apache.conf I added this:

<FilesMatch "\.phps$">
    SetHandler application/x-httpd-php
    RewriteEngine On
    RewriteRule ^(.*)$ /tools/code/index.php [QSA,L]
</FilesMatch>

the /tools/ directory is added as an alias

Alias /tools "C:/Web/httpdocs/tools/"

That's enough for using the defined index.php file as a "handler".

I used Ace editor to display the code. To load the .phps file for viewing within the editor, I added an invisible <textarea> element to the editor file with the source loaded into it:

<textarea id="code" style="display:none;">
    <?=file_get_contents(ltrim($_SERVER['DOCUMENT_ROOT'], '/').$_SERVER['REQUEST_URI']);?>
</textarea>

I modified the initialization code to suit my needs:

<script>
    var editor = ace.edit('editor');
    editor.session.setMode('ace/mode/php');
    editor.setTheme('ace/theme/monokai');
    editor.setValue(document.getElementById('code').value);
    editor.gotoLine(1);
    editor.setShowPrintMargin(false);
    editor.setReadOnly(true);
</script>

And voila, I have a more advanced way of viewing .phps files. Thanks for helping me get on track.