Htaccess File Tutorial and Tips

After posting Understanding of Regular Expression article most of my readers are expecting .htaccess basics, and I did not find any useful article on Google first page results. Specially I love to write.htaccess file, using this you can easily configure and redirect Apache Web Server file system. This post will explain you how to create friendly URLs, sub domain directory re-directions and many more.

Note: .htaccess file will be in hidden format, please change your folder and file settings to view this file. 
How to Create a .htaccess File?
Open any text editor application and file save as with .htaccess name and enablemod_rewrite extension in php.ini file in Apache Web Server configurations. 

Default directory Listing

Disable directory Listing
If you want to disable folder files listing, include following code. 

# Disable Directory Browsing
Options All -Indexes

Error Pages

Here error page is redirecting to error.html. 

errorDocument 400 http://www.youwebsite.com/error.html
errorDocument 401 http://www.youwebsite.com/error.html
errorDocument 404 http://www.youwebsite.com/error.html
errorDocument 500 http://www.youwebsite.com/error.html

RewriteEngine On it is turn on Rewrite Rules in Apache Server. if you want to turn off, just change the value to off.

RewriteEngine on

Domain Redirection
.htacces code for redirecting yourwebsite.com to www.yourwebsite.com

RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^yourwebsite.com
RewriteRule (.*) http://www.yourwebsite.com/$1 [R=301,L]

Sub Domain Redirection
Sub domain redirection mapping to folder. Here http://www.yourwebsite.com is connecting to website_folder folder. 

RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^www\.yourwebsite\.com$
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !^/website_folder/
RewriteRule (.*) /website_folder/$1

Here http://subdomain.yourwebsite.com is connecting to subdomain_folderfolder. 

RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^subdomain\.yourwebsite\.com$
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !^/subdomain_folder/
RewriteRule (.*) /subdomain_folder/$1

Old Domain Redirection
htaccess code for redirecting old domain(abc.com) to new domain(xyz.com). Live demo fglogin.com is now redirecting to oauthlogin.com

RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^abc.com
RewriteRule (.*) http://www.xyz.com/$1 [R=301,L]

RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^www\.abc\.com
RewriteRule (.*) http://www.abc.com/$1 [R=301,L]

Friendly URLs
Friendly/Pretty URLs help in search engine rankings.

Profile URL 
Profile parameter allows [a-zA-Z0-9_-] these inputs. More help read Understanding Regular Expression 
http://labs.9lessons.info/profile.php?username=srinivas
to
http://labs.9lessons.info/srinivas

RewriteRule ^([a-zA-Z0-9_-]+)$ profile.php?username=$1
RewriteRule ^([a-zA-Z0-9_-]+)/$ profile.php?username=$1

Messages URL 
http://labs.9lessons.info/messages.php?message_username=srinivas
to
http://labs.9lessons.info/messages/srinivas

RewriteRule ^messages/([a-zA-Z0-9_-]+)$ messages.php?message_username=$1
RewriteRule ^messages/([a-zA-Z0-9_-]+)/$ messages.php?message_username=$1

Friends URL 
http://labs.9lessons.info/friends.php?username=srinivas
to
http://labs.9lessons.info/friends/srinivas

RewriteRule ^friends/([a-zA-Z0-9_-]+)$ friends.php?username=$1
RewriteRule ^friends/([a-zA-Z0-9_-]+)/$ friends.php?username=$1

Friends URL with Two Parameters 
Here the first parameter allows [a-zA-Z0-9_-] and second parameter allows only number [0-9]
http://labs.9lessons.info/friends.php?username=srinivas&page=2
to
http://labs.9lessons.info/friends/srinivas/2

RewriteRule ^friends/([a-zA-Z0-9_-]+)/([0-9]+)$ friends.php?username=$1&page=$2
RewriteRule ^friends/([a-zA-Z0-9_-]+)/([0-9]+)/$ friends.php?username=$1&page=$2

Hiding File Extension
http://www.yourwebsite.com/index.html
to
http://www.yourwebsite.com/index

RewriteRule ^([^/.]+)/?$ $1.html

This article is taken from here: http://www.9lessons.info/2013/11/htaccess-file-tutorial-and-tips.html