can mod_rewrite be used for this problem?

Question

We used to have a URL

http://www.abc.com/index.php?itemID=144

which is moved to

http://www.abc.com/index.php?itemID=1556

we want our users which are hitting the above url(144) to reach to 1556. How can it be achieved. If with mod_rewrite or anything else.

Answer 1

Not sure if you want to redirect only 144=>1556 or it is just an example. Anyway you can try this:

Options +FollowSymlinks -MultiViews
RewriteEngine On

RewriteCond %{QUERY_STRING} (^|&)id=144(&|$) [NC]
RewriteRule ^(index\.php)/?$ /$1?id=1556 [NC,R,L]

Explanation:

• RewriteCond is making sure there is id=144 in query string
• RewriteRule is making sure that request URI is index.php (optionally followed by a trailing slash).
• If both conditions are satisfied then rule will redirect to /index.php?id=1556. (Note use of back reference $1 instead of repeating index.php here).

• Flags used are:

  1. NC - ignore case comparison
  2. R - redirect (by default with status = 302)
  3. L - Mark it as last rule

If you really want to replace multiple old IDs to new IDs then I will suggest you to take a look at: http://httpd.apache.org/docs/current/mod/mod_rewrite.html#rewritemap