Hi all,
I have a question about using rewrites in php/apache.
One thing i cannot seem to figure out is this.

I have for example a feedback page. This page is accessed through a list of users so you can provide feedback for a user. The link needs to pass the ID of the user so the page knows which user you are commenting on. The link is like this:

 <a href="feedback/44243/">user</a>

And the rewrite rule is like this:

 RewriteRule ^feedback/([0-9]+)(/)?$ index.php?dir=users&file=feedback&userid=$1

As you can see my rule is requires you to pass an ID. Fair enuf.

However, this page has a form which submits to itself so it can process the feedback and display a un/successful message. Therefore, if the form submits to itself, i don't need to pass the ID through the querystring anymore since i can use hidden form variables, so, i want to the action of the form to be:

 action="feedback/"

The problem is that from the above rule, i have set the rule to require variables. If i define another rule for feedback without the variables, it won't find the page. Therefore im forced to set the action to include the userid again - which i'd prefer not to.

What am i doing wrong or is there better way i should be doing this?

Thanks in advance.

Just a wild guess but...

RewriteRule ^feedback/$ index.php?dir=users&file=feedback
I think that would work, unless the file has to have the user ID variable defined.

If that doesnt work, perhaps you may want to post the contents of the PHP script, that might be of more help.

Nope no go.
I know theres gota be some way, my wild guess is to use Rewrite conditions, although i've never tried it before.
Any help?

RewriteRule ^feedback\/?$ index.php?dir=users&file=feedback [L]
# I am not quite sure about trailing slash, you must look into your rewrite log
# the [L] directive tells apache to stop rewriting after performing this rewrite
RewriteRule ^feedback\/([0-9]+)?\/?$ index.php?dir=users&file=feedback&userid=$1 [L]
# this one will pass empty userid if the previous rewrite is not performed

mtishetsky,
thanks, i will try that when i'm back at work tomorrow and post the results.
Cheers

Works fine mtishetsky. It was actually my problem in the php code itself that was causing the mishaps, and applying the [L] attribute is useful.

Thank you for your help.
Cheers.

Give me my talkupation!