Simple Pretty URL Using PHP htaccess (Step-By-Step Example)

Welcome to a quick tutorial on how to create a pretty URL system with PHP and htaccess. Showing the actual file name of scripts in the URL is ugly, and it is a security risk. If you are looking to create clean, human-friendly URLs, it actually isn’t that difficult to achieve – Read on for an example!

 

 

TABLE OF CONTENTS

 

 

EXAMPLE CODE DOWNLOAD

Source code on GitHub Gist

Just click on “download zip” or do a git clone. I have released it under the MIT license, so feel free to build on top of it or use it in your own project.

 

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TUTORIAL VIDEO

 

REQUIREMENT) ENABLE URL REWRITE IN APACHE

# Make sure that mod rewrite is enabled
LoadModule rewrite_module modules/mod_rewrite.so

# Make sure that AllowOverride is enabled
<Directory "D:/YOUR-HTTP-FOLDER">
  AllowOverride All
</Directory>

Before we get into the code, please make sure that the URL rewrite module is enabled with overriding allowed.

 

STEP 1) HTACCESS – REDIRECT EVERYTHING TO INDEX.PHP

RewriteEngine On
RewriteRule .* - [E=HTTP_AUTHORIZATION:%{HTTP:Authorization}]
RewriteBase /
RewriteRule ^index\.php$ - [L]
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteRule . /index.php [L]

First, create a .htaccess file in your project folder. That’s right, for you guys who have used WordPress before, look no further – This is exactly what WordPress does. What these mean in plain English:

• Rewrite engine on, redirect everything to index.php .
• Don’t redirect HTTP authentication requests.
• Also, leave the existing files and folders alone.

The whole idea here is to use PHP to load the requested page (or even fetch contents from the database).

 

 

STEP 2) PHP PAGE LOAD HANDLER

<?php
// (A) SETTINGS
define("URL_BASE", "/");
define("PATH_PAGES", __DIR__ . DIRECTORY_SEPARATOR . "pages" . DIRECTORY_SEPARATOR);
 
// (B) PARSE URL PATH INTO AN ARRAY
// e.g. http://site.com > [""]
// e.g. http://site.com/foo > ["foo"]
// e.g. http://site.com/foo/bar > ["foo", "bar"]
$path = parse_url($_SERVER["REQUEST_URI"], PHP_URL_PATH);
if (substr($path, 0, strlen(URL_BASE)) == URL_BASE) {
  $path = substr($path, strlen(URL_BASE));
}
$path = explode("/", rtrim($path, "/\\"));

// (C) LOAD REQUESTED PAGE ACCORDINGLY
// (C1) URL PATH TO PHYSICAL FILE
// e.g. http://site.com > index.html
// e.g. http://site.com/foo > foo.html
// e.g. http://site.com/foo/bar > foo-bar.html
if (count($path)==1) { 
  $file = $path[0]=="" ? "index.html" : $path[0] . ".html"; 
} else {
  $file = implode("-", $path) . ".html"; 
}

// (C2) LOAD PHYSICAL FILE
if (file_exists(PATH_PAGES . $file)) { require PATH_PAGES . $file; }
else {
  http_response_code(404);
  require PATH_PAGES . "404.html";
}

Not going to explain this line-by-line, but this script essentially “maps the URL path to the physical file”. For example:

• http://site.com will load pages/index.html.
• http://site.com/foo will load pages/foo.html.
• http://site.com/foo/bar will load pages/foo-bar.html.
• If the “mapping fails”, show a 404 page.

 

 

STEP 3) HTML PAGES

With the foundations all in place, all that’s left is to create a “pages” folder and add some pages inside.

 

3A) HOME PAGE

<h1>HOME PAGE</h1>
<p>The dummy home page.</p>

 

3B) ABOUT PAGE

<h1>ABOUT PAGE</h1>
<p>The dummy about page.</p>

 

3C) 404 PAGE

<h1>PAGE NOT FOUND</h1>
<p>Opps. Page might have been abducted by aliens.</p>

 

 

EXTRA) PROTECTING THE PAGES FOLDER

Deny from all

Users can still manually access the pages from the URL, for example, http://site.com/pages/about.html. So a small extra here, create a .htaccess file in the pages folder to deny public access.

P.S. PHP is still able to read and access the pages folder.

 

 

MANY OTHER WAYS TO LOAD PAGES

The above is but a simple example of how page load can be handled in PHP. There are endless ways to do it, and here are a few more ideas:

• Instead of a flat HTML page, create your own template system –
  • require PATH_PAGES . "HTML-TOP.PHP";
  • require PATH_PAGES . "REQUESTED-PAGE.PHP";
  • require PATH_PAGES . "HTML-BOTTOM.PHP";
• Load content from the database
  • require PATH_PAGES . "HTML-TOP.PHP";
  • SELECT `content` FROM `pages` WHERE `url`="REQUESTED"...
  • require PATH_PAGES . "HTML-BOTTOM.PHP;
• For you guys who are working on an eCommerce project, the path can be used to serve as the category or pagination. For example, http://site.com/pastas/3. $path[0] is the category, and $path[1] is the page number.
• You can even use the pretty URL for an access check. For example, http://site.com/admin/page – if ($path[0]=="admin" && $_SESSION["user"]["level"]!=["admin"]) { NO PERMISSION }

So yes, feel free to change it however you see fit in your project.

 

HOW ABOUT OTHER WEB SERVERS?

If you are using IIS or NGINX – It is possible to achieve this as well. Just enable URL rewrite and “translate” the above .htaccess for your web server.

 

LINKS & REFERENCES

• HTACCESS Guide
• URL Parts in PHP – Code Boxx