How can I use in .htaccess?

Question

I want to change from this address:

www.domain.com/game.php?id=1

to somthing like that:

www.domain.com/game/1/THE-NAME-OF-THE-GAME-IN-DB

How can I do it?

And one more question:

I want when the user goes to address which doesnt exists, for example if it doesnt exists:

www.domain.com/game.php?id=9123912 - this ID doesnt exists

The server will pass him to 404 error. How can I do it?

Thank you very much.

EDIT:

game.php:

if (isset($_GET['id'])) {

    $row = mysql_num_rows(mysql_query("SELECT * FROM games WHERE id = '{$_GET['id']}'"));

    if ($row) {
        $game = mysql_fetch_array(mysql_query("SELECT * FROM games WHERE id = '{$_GET['id']}'"));
        Header( "HTTP/1.1 301 Moved Permanently" ); 
        Header( "Location: /game/".$game['id']."/".seo_title($game['name'])); 
    } 

    else {
        Header( "HTTP/1.1 404 Not found" ); 
    }

    exit;
}

htaccess:

LIKE YOU SAID. I JUST COPIED.

Answer 1

.htaccess

RewriteEngine On
RewriteRule ^game/([0-9]+)/ /game.php?newid=$1

game.php

if (isset($_GET['id'])) {
  $row = dbgetrow("SELECT * FROM games WHERE id = %s",$_GET['id']);
  if ($row) {
    Header( "HTTP/1.1 301 Moved Permanently" ); 
    Header( "Location: /game/".$row['id']."/".seo_title($row['name'])); 
  } else {
    Header( "HTTP/1.1 404 Not found" ); 
  }
  exit;
}

if (isset($_GET['newid'])) $_GET['id'] = $_GET['newid'];

this is a code, that works for me but considered to be a pseudo-code to give you an idea.
dbgetrow() function to get a row from the database
and seo_title() function could be like this one

function seo_title($s) {
    $s = strtolower(trim($s));
    $s = str_replace(" ","-",$s);
    $s = preg_replace('![^a-z0-9-]!',"",$s);
    $s = preg_replace('!\-+!',"-",$s);
    return $s;
}

The whole concept has been pinched from SO :)
the only games/1/ part is really important while the rest can be anything, game title is just for seo purpose. Take this question title for example:
How can I use in .htaccess?
:)

Answer 2

.htaccess isn't meant to perform url rewriting like you mention. If your server is running apache try this . If your server is running IIS try this .

As for the second question, if the id doesn't exist, have game.php perform a redirect to a pagename you know does not exist (like 9123912.html). The server should be configured to deliver the 404 natively then.

Answer 3

Probably the best way is to redirect page to correct url like code below: (work for me)

if (isset($_GET['id'])) {
$script_url = "http://localhost/scripts/myscripts/";
  $row = dbgetrow("SELECT * FROM games WHERE id = %s",$_GET['id']);
  if ($row) {
    Header( "HTTP/1.1 301 Moved Permanently" ); 
    Header( "Location: ".$script_url."/game/".$row['id']."/".seo_title($row['name'])); 
  } else {
    Header( "HTTP/1.1 404 Not found" ); 
  }
}

and in .htaccess file you can also set RewriteBase to somethings like RewriteBase / or RewriteBase /YOUR_SCRIPT_PATH_WITHOUT_HOST_NAME/

also see Apache Doc