Remove Query String from the end of the URL after passing through Rewrite Map

Question

I have a list of several hundred URL redirects/rewrites inside of a rewrite map. Most of the URL's contain query strings that match a specific entry in the rewrite map. I found this question on how to pass the query string into the rewrite map. I got this working fine but the problem now is that the existing query string is appended to the end of the rewritten URL. For example:

Expected Rewrite:
/subdir/dir.cfm?categoryID=123 -> https://example.com/subdir/endurl   

Actual Rewrite:
https://example.com/subdir/endurl?categoryID=123

Expected Rewrite
/subdir/dir.cfm?videoID=3422424-131FDDFD-234 -> https://example.com/subdir/awesome/stuff

Actual Rewrite:
https://example.com/subdir/awesome/stuff?videoID=3422424-131FDDFD-234

This is the rewrite rules I have:

RewriteEngine on

RewriteMap redirects dbm=sdbm:C:\Apache24\conf\redirects.sdbm
RewriteCond ${redirects:$1} !=""
RewriteRule ^(.*\.(cfm|cfml)) ${redirects:$1?%{QUERY_STRING}} [NC,R=301,L]

How can I remove the query string appended to the URL after the rewrite?

EDIT

I was able to actually get this working using this:

RewriteMap redirects dbm=sdbm:C:\Apache24\conf\redirects.sdbm
RewriteCond ${redirects:$1} !=""
RewriteRule ^(.*\.(cfm|cfml)) ${redirects:$1?%{QUERY_STRING}} [NC,C]
RewriteRule (.*) $1? [L,R=301]

However I am not sure if someone knows of a better way to accomplish what I am doing? I am thinking this might break if I ever have to redirect to a URL that contains a query string to another url that contains a query string.

Answer 1

In Apache version 2.4.0 and later, you can use [QSD] flag (Query String Discard):

RewriteRule ^(.*\.(cfm|cfml)) ${redirects:$1?%{QUERY_STRING}} [QSD,NC]

In Apache version 2.2, there is no [QSD] flag, but if the replacement URI contains a query string, the default behavior of RewriteRule is to discard the existing query string, so by just adding a ? to your rewrite URI, you will get the same effect:

RewriteRule ^(.*\.(cfm|cfml)) ${redirects:$1?%{QUERY_STRING}}? [NC]

(your newly added rewrite rule actually uses this feature)