mod_rewrite not working with query string without file extension

Question

I'm trying to rewrite user/John-Doe to user?name=John-Doe with mod_rewrite in .htaccess . I have the .htaccess in the same directory with the file I'm rewriting/redirecting. This is the code in the htaccess:

RewriteEngine on 
RewriteRule ^user/(\w+)/?$ user?name=$1

Now I do not receive any data from $_GET['name'] and var_dump($_GET) is empty.

Answer 1

You need to capture more characters with [\w-]+
Also, you are point the request to user?name=$1 that should be user.php?name=$1 ?

.htaccess

<IfModule mod_rewrite.c> # Check if mod_rewrite if avaible
    RewriteEngine on 
    RewriteRule ^user/([\w-]+)/?$ user.php?name=$1
</IfModule>

user.php

<?php
var_dump($_GET);

array(1) { ["name"]=> string(8) "John-Doe" }

Test example

https://regex101.com/r/up32vA/1

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Also check if mod_rewrite is enabled in your server, a easy way is putting this in index.php

print_r( apache_get_modules() );