URL rewrite to another folder and file for specific requests

Question

I have following directory structure on my local LAMP:

• www
  • basic
    • app
      • router.php
    • public
      • index.html
      • .htaccess

and I can access my index page with localhost/basic/public/ and I am not using any virtual hosts.

Now I am trying to do two things:

1. Instead of localhost/basic/public/ URL should look like localhost/basic/ to access homepage.

2. All requests to /api/ should be redirected to router.php. For example if I make a request like /api/user/login it should go to app/router.php where I can execute specific code according to request for API.

To achieve this I was trying do something like following in .htaccess file but its not working:

RewriteEngine On

RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} ^/api/ [NC]
RewriteRule . ../app/router.php [NC,L]

Also I am not sure if we can use relative paths in RewriteRule.

Answer 1

First, I'd move your .htaccess file to /www/.htaccess. Apache only "executes" .htaccess files it finds along the path of the request. Requests like /api/... will only "execute" an .htaccess in the docroot (/www) and will not "find" nor "execute" your .htaccess in /www/basic/app/public/.htaccess.

Having done that, for (1), do something like

RewriteRule ^basic/$ basic/public/ [NC,L]

For (2), do something like

RewriteRule ^api/(.*) basic/app/router.php?_REQUEST=$1 [NC,L]