I have successfully implemented the whole rewrite engine thing in an htaccess file in order to remove “index.php” from the URLs. Seems to work like a charm but I can’t figure out one thing:

(Note: in my setup, “index.php” is actually “main”)

The one place the “index.php” STILL shows up in a URL is when I use {auto_path} to paginate archives.

This is the URL generated to go to the second page of archives:

http://www.mysite.com/meetings/archive/main/P32/

So, not only is index.php (main) showing up but it’s in a funky position in the URL.

The only other place I can recall using the {auto_path} varable is in the search results template and I checked that…the URLs generated by it are perfect.

The whole site is functioning correctly except for this one thing so it would seem to me that for once, I didn’t screw this up. Or did I? In any case, any idea how to correct this?

How exactly are you using it in your EE code?

Hi Chris. Thanks for your help (again!).

For the {auto_path} variable in my archive template, this is what I have within the {exp:weblog:entries} tag:

{paginate}
{if previous_page}
<a href=”{auto_path}”>Previous Page</a> 
{/if}
{if next_page}
<a href=”{auto_path}”>Next Page</a>
{/if}
{/paginate}

For the htaccess file:

DirectoryIndex main index index.php index.shtml index.html index.htm
<Files main>
ForceType application/x-httpd-php
</Files>

RewriteEngine on
RewriteCond $1 !^content.*
RewriteCond $1 !^images.*
RewriteCond $1 !^main.*
RewriteRule ^(.*) main/$1 [NC,L]

Look under Admin > General Configuration and make sure you have the “Name of your site’s index page” setting blank.

Yup. It’s blank. And all weblogs’ path settings under weblog management have the “index.php” segment removed from them. That’s why it’s so weird…I mean, everything else works fine.

I am doing similar rewriting in my .htaccess file, and I cannot duplicate this problem on my own site.  However, while digging through the code, I found this bit in the mod.weblog.php file around line 1625:

if ( ! eregi(”.php$”, SELF) AND ! ereg(SELF, $this->basepath))
{
    $this->basepath .= SELF.’/’;
}

SELF is a constant that is equal the the name of the main index page (‘main’ in your case), so I wonder if this is causing the addition.  Could you remove it from your mod.weblog.php file and see if it helps?

I commented out those lines and…it worked. Thanks for your help with this.

Which, of course, leads me to my next question:

Why does it work? How come the problem happens to me and not to you? What effect will removing that snippet have on other functions since it’s in the code for a reason?

Or am I jumping the gun and need to take a deep, deep breath…and this was just a test to let you know the effect of removing that code? Gosh, I’d hate to now be resigned to a lifetime of needing to remember to edit mod.weblog.php every time there is an update.

Well, the logic above is meant to make sure if you are at the URL:  http://www.yoursite.com/, then the ‘index.php’ is added before the adding of the template group, template, and pagination segments.  Ex:  http://www.yoursite.com/index.php/P20/

The problem occurs because your index.php had its name changed to drop the .php AND because .htaccess has allowed the dropping of index.php (‘main’ now) from the URL, thus EE thinks you are at the main page of your site and adds the ‘main’ to the end of the URL before adding the pagination segment. 

Just wondering, why did you change the name of your index.php file if you were just going to drop it anyway?

Gosh, now that you ask, it does seem pretty stupid, doesn’t it?

I changed the name of index.php because I didn’t have any intention of dropping it entirely…and this was mainly because I didn’t understand the steps for doing the rewrite stuff. Guess I got adventurous. No, actually, having that extra segment in there was really bugging me. And my client wasn’t real happy with it either.

So, given your last question to me, it sounds like if I revert back to index.php, everything will be fine and dandy…?

Uh…are the steps for reverting back to index.php obvious or will I risk another meltdown in the process?

Silly, at the very least.

I believe reverting back should fix it, yes.  Rick and I never expected someone to change the name of the index.php *and* make it disappear, so hence why the slight problem here.

I think you can just change the file ‘main’ back to index.php and then update the last line of your htaccess file to this:  RewriteRule ^(.*) index.php/$1 [NC,L]

It worked! It worked! Whew!! Thanks so much! One last quickie which I think is obvious but just want to make sure:

I can completely dump this part of the htaccess file, right?

DirectoryIndex main index index.php index.shtml index.html index.htm

<Files main>
ForceType application/x-httpd-php
</Files>

I would still keep the DirectoryIndex part, just remove the ‘main index’ part of it.

I actually had the same problem: index.php mysteriously appeared in the {auto_path} variable.

My .htaccess file looks something like this:

RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond $1 !^(cms|css|pdf|images|index\.php).*
RewriteRule ^(.*) index.php/$1 [NC,L]

Am I right in concluding that the only way to solve this problem is to comment out the $this->basepath .= SELF.’/’; line in mod.weblog.php? Like Pavia, I’d rather not edit the file every time there is an update…

Lodewijk, even though Paul’s workaround—removing some code from mod.weblog.php—worked, the ultimate solution for me was to go back to using “index.php”. Go through this thread again—you’ll see that I had changed it to “main” in order to rid myself of the .php extension. Apparently, that was sort of dumb.

But from what you say, your index.php file is actually called index.php so, um…hmmm…I guess I have no wisdom to impart to you. Sorry.

> But from what you say, your index.php file is actually called index.php

I did change it to something else before, but changed it back to index.php the moment I learned how the whole thing can be removed from the URI using the correct statements in the .htaccess file.

Nevertheless, after changing the filename back to index.php, the problem remained. Removing the line from mod.weblog.php solved the problem. Kinda.

But If you say all was well with you, I’ll just have another crack at it and triple-check my code.

Okay, now I’m postitive that it’s not me! I reproduced the same problem with a clean installation, EE 1.2.1 build 20050115. I tried different .htaccess rules and syntaxes, but the problem persists (up to a point I nearly threw my brand new monitor out of the window, 8 stories up). The only way to solve it is to comment out this in mod.weblog.php:

...or do I need to quadruple-check my code?

OH NO!!! Ever since the upgrade to Build 20050123, it’s back! It finally dawned on me to take a look. :-(((

And I’m only 4 stories up!

Er, now what…?

*looks around for pmachine staff*

Paul? Chris? Rick? Anyone?!?

As far as I know, this should be included with the next bug fix release, whenever that is put out.  I don’t know what changes Paul had made to the file.