How can I get mod_rewrite to rewrite everything?

Question

What I've been trying to achieve is to get my .htaccess file to rewrite ALL URLS.

No matter what I do, however, I cannot get it ignore existing directories. And by that, I mean, act as if they don't exist.

For example, say I have the following file structure:

/
    dir1
        file1.php
    dir2
        file2.php
    .htaccess

And suppose I want to redirect all traffic to dir1/file1.php?url=path .

This never works for me if the path is an existing directory.

For example, if I navigate to url/path/stuff/dir2 , the "redirecting" works, but the URL in the address bar changes to url/path/stuff/dir2/?url=dir2 for some unfathomable reason.

Here is my .htaccess :

Options -MultiViews

Options -Indexes

Options +FollowSymLinks

# so navigating to a url with a trailing slash won't cause problems
DirectorySlash Off

RewriteEngine On

RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f

RewriteRule ^(.*)$ dir1/file1.php?url=$1 [QSA,L]

Answer 1

You (updated) .htaccess is saying: IF (it is not an existing file) THEN { rewrite the URL }. Seems like you want

RewriteEngine on
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !dir1/file1.php
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ dir1/file1.php?url=$1 [QSA,L]

In this case, the RewriteCond just prevents infinite looping. The RewriteRule gets applied once and only once. Rewrite module will keep cycling thru all the rules until a cycle does not result in a changed to the URI.