I would like to ask some basic clarifications on this mod_rewrite RewriteRule of Apache, cause I have found different explanations and maybe I am missing something:
RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteRule !\.(js|ico|gif|jpg|png|css)$ /index.php
This rule is supposed to rewrite every request to the index.php (in the DOCUMENT_ROOT directory) when the requested resource extension is NOT one of those hardcoded in the sub-pattern of the regexp at the condition that the resource is NOT a local file, but what differs this rule from this one:
RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteRule !\.(js|ico|gif|jpg|png|css)$ index.php
? They're exactly the same if not that the substitution string in the second rule (index.php) is without the leading slash.
Now, a user here -> Apache rewrite rule leading slash says that:
So /help.php looks in the root of the system for a file called help.php, which on my system it cannot find.
Shouldn't it be so even for the /index.php (the substitution string in the first rule I have posted)?
Then I would like to ask:
if the request is for example to http://localhost/a_file_that_don't_exist.php Apache is going to match against a_file_that_don't_exist.php or against /a_file_that_don't_exist.php?
In the wiki -> https://wiki.apache.org/httpd/RewriteRule they say that Apache will:
match against the URI-path
That is:
everything after
http://hostname, and not including any query string arguments
But in some tutorials about RewriteRule people say that URI-path is everything after http://hostname/, thus NOT including the leading slash (REQUEST_URI without the leading slash).
Could someone elucidate this misunderstandings, please?
Cause if pattern matches without the leading slash, the first RewriteRule should replace the URI-path to -> http://localhost//index.php which is not a valid URL, but instead it works beautifully both ways...
EDIT: in the Apache docs they say:
Note that mod_rewrite tries to guess whether you have specified a file-system path or a URL-path by checking to see if the first segment of the path exists at the root of the file-system. For example, if you specify a Substitution string of /www/file.html, then this will be treated as a URL-path unless a directory named www exists at the root or your file-system (or, in the case of using rewrites in a .htaccess file, relative to your document root), in which case it will be treated as a file-system path.
So is it correctly to say that in .htaccess RewriteRules are always relative to the DOCUMENT_ROOT if they start with a leading slash and relative to the .htaccess directory if without the leading slash?
