How to use .htaccess mod rewrite to redirect php url as a string?

Question

I've been trying to make:

http://site.com/file.php?x=foo

redirect to:

http://newsite.com/something/completely/different/

Using the following:

<IfModule mod_rewrite.c>
RewriteEngine On
RewriteBase /

RewriteRule ^file\.php?x=foo$ http://newsite.com/something/completely/different/ [R=301,NC,L]

</IfModule>

But it doesn't do anything (just loads same old page as if I never touched the htaccess).

Is there something I'm missing?

Thanks much for the help!

Answer 1

The ? at the end of .php is making the last p optional (so .phpx=foo or .phx=foo would match). It's not actually being considered a character in the match. Try escaping the ? like: \\?

Edit :

For those wondering what the solution was:

The query string arguments aren't passed to the string that RewriteRule matches against. So you have to create a RewriteCond on QUERY_STRING first, then match the url without arguments. Eg:

RewriteCond %{QUERY_STRING} x=foo
RewriteRule ^file\.php$ http://newsite.com/something/completely/different/ [R=301,NC,L]

There's probably/hopefully a better way to do this (since this RewriteCond would cascade down to other rules, which is annoying).