is there a way to write .htaccess shorter?

Question

RewriteRule ^([A-Za-z0-9_\-]+)$ /userviewproducts.php?category=$1 [L]
RewriteRule ^([A-Za-z0-9_\-]+)/$ /userviewproducts.php?category=$1 [L]
RewriteRule ^([A-Za-z0-9_\-]+/[A-Za-z0-9_\-]+)$ /userviewproducts.php?category=$1 [L]
RewriteRule ^([A-Za-z0-9_\-]+/[A-Za-z0-9_\-]+)/$ /userviewproducts.php?category=$1 [L]
RewriteRule ^([A-Za-z0-9_\-]+/[A-Za-z0-9_\-]+/[A-Za-z0-9_\-]+)$ /viewbuyproduct.php?1=$1 [L]
RewriteRule ^([A-Za-z0-9_\-]+/[A-Za-z0-9_\-]+/[A-Za-z0-9_\-]+)/$ /viewbuyproduct.php?1=$1 [L]

I have next rules. They work in that way:

if url = /a or /a/ or /a/a or /a/a/ go to file userviewproducts.php
and if url = /a/a/a or /a/a/a/ go to file viewbuyproduct.php

It works as i need, but i see the CODE-SMELLS term here and want to write it shorter. Will plus every answer =)

Answer 1

Try this:

RewriteRule ^([A-Za-z0-9_\-]+)/?$ /userviewproducts.php?category=$1 [L]
RewriteRule ^([A-Za-z0-9_\-]+/[A-Za-z0-9_\-]+)/?$ /userviewproducts.php?category=$1 [L]
RewriteRule ^([A-Za-z0-9_\-]+/[A-Za-z0-9_\-]+/[A-Za-z0-9_\-]+)/?$ /viewbuyproduct.php?1=$1 [L]

It's shorter.

Answer 2

Read up on Regular Expressions. A better understanding of them will help you write shorter rules here and in future.

You can use a regular expression tool to experiment with different rules and see how they match.

I am sure you can get it down to two lines - one for each outcome that you want. The lines might be longer though :-)