This is my first post on the site so firstly can I just say hello to everyone.

Basically what I would like to know is how it is possible to have a URL such as...

http://www.myspace.com/misslisaq
http://www.faceparty.com/_me_and_my_star

...that goes to the username's profile / page when this is entered into the browser? As the information is stored on a db I presume that each username on the site is not each given a directory.

Any help would be much appreciated

Hi Galvetron, and welcome!!

I checked out those sites (faceparty.com and myspace.com) and see that they are free to join.

I would venture to guess that when someone signs up and creates an account, and whatever name they choose for that account is automatically creating a sub-directory for their little web space.

So if you type in just http://www.myspace.com/ you'll go to that home site about myspace.com. But..if you type in the chosen name that someone signed up with (as misslisag did) as a sub-directory off of myspace.com, you'll end up finding her little web space.

Yahoo has the same thing with their geocities web space. I know cuz I've done it.

Just my 2 cents,
DianeD

You can do this with something called MOD-rewrite and some dynamic scripting. I've never done this myself so can't advise on specifics, but the basic idea is that the webserver takes the url http://www.myspace.com/misslisaq and converts it into http://www.myspace.com/showmember.php?member=misslisaq . Then you have a dynamic page called showmember.php that takes the member name and grabs their stuff from a database or whatever.