Redirect URLs but ignore if blank

Question

I currently redirect URL's using the code below within a .htaccess file.

RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteRule ^news/(.*)$ /news/page.php?ref=$1

This works perfectly and enables me to run a script within page.php to retrieve the correct article. The issue I have is that /news/ gets redirected to page.php, even though no article is specified within the url. How can I modify this code to avoid this.

Currently as a quick fix I have put a condition at the beginning of the page.php file that checks if ref is set and if not then redirect to /news/index.php. This works because I have specified a file, index.php. I would like the url /news/ to resolve without index.php having to be specified.

If you want the solution in .htaccess please don't tag it as php :) — Epodax, Nov 03 '15 at 13:17

score 2 · Accepted Answer · edited May 23 '17 at 11:46

2

You can use ^news/(.+)$ in your pattern.

What different between * and + you can read in regex-plus-vs-star-difference

edited May 23 '17 at 11:46

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answered Nov 03 '15 at 13:19

Anton Ohorodnyk

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Thanks, i'll give it a try. What's the difference between`(.*)` and `(.+)`? – Nov 03 '15 at 13:22
What different between `*` and `+` you can read in [regex-plus-vs-star-difference](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/8575281/regex-plus-vs-star-difference) – Anton Ohorodnyk Nov 03 '15 at 13:23
@steve as usual * is 0 or more and + is 1 or more – Thamilhan Nov 03 '15 at 13:23
Thanks @VijayaSankarN – Nov 03 '15 at 13:26
Thanks for the link. Still trying to get my head around `regex` – Nov 03 '15 at 13:26

Redirect URLs but ignore if blank

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