How do I remove article ID from URL?

[dalcorn1]

I've managed to set up my links so that they run to the url I want. Originally they were running to 'myweb.com/blog/1/title' but i've decided that's not quite good enough and want to remove the article id from the url so it reads 'myweb.com/blog/title'. I understand I need to get the blog reading from the $title row and not the $id but I'm not quite sure how to do this with my code, which is this:

if (!isset($_GET['id']) || !is_numeric($_GET['id'])) {
die("Invalid ID specified.");
}

$id = (int)$_GET['id'];
$sql = "SELECT * FROM php_blog WHERE id='$id' LIMIT 1";

$result = mysql_query($sql) or print ("Can't select entry from table php_blog.<br />" . $sql . "<br />" . mysql_error());

while($row = mysql_fetch_array($result)) {

$date = date("l F d Y", $row['timestamp']);

$title = stripslashes($row['title']);
$entry = stripslashes($row['entry']);
$password = $row['password'];
$get_categories = mysql_query("SELECT * FROM php_blog_categories WHERE `category_id` = $row[category]");
$category = mysql_fetch_array($get_categories);

if ($password == 1) {
if (isset($_POST['username']) && $_POST['username'] == $my_username) {
if (isset($_POST['pass']) && $_POST['pass'] == $my_password) {
?>
<p><strong><?php echo $title; ?></strong><br /><br />
<?php echo $entry; ?><br /><br />
Posted in <?php echo $category['category_name']; ?> on <?php echo $date; ?></p>

<?php
}
else { ?>
<p>Sorry, wrong password.</p>

<?php
}
}
else {
echo "<p><strong>" . $title . "</strong></p>";

printf("<p>This is a password protected entry. If you have a password, log in below.</p>");

printf("<form method=\"post\" action=\"blog_single.php?id=&#37;s\"><p><strong><label for=\"username\">Username:</label></strong><br /><input type=\"text\" name=\"username\" id=\"username\" /></p><p><strong><label for=\"pass\">Password:</label></strong><br /><input type=\"password\" name=\"pass\" id=\"pass\" /></p><p><input type=\"submit\" name=\"submit\" id=\"submit\" value=\"submit\" /></p></form>",$id);
print "<br /><br />";
}
}
else { ?>

Any help would be gratefully appreciated, thank you in advance.

[ralphchadkirk]

So you want the PHP to find the article on the basis of the title, rather than the record ID? Dangerous stuff. Always select a record by the unique field - usually the ID. Titles are not always unique.

[dalcorn1]

I'm not necessarily saying that's what I want to happen, I've just heard that's one way to do it. This is my blog so all the titles will be unique. However if there is a better way to remove the number from my url then I'm certainly willing to listen to that.

At the moment, to achieve 'myweb.com/blog/article-title/' i have this in my .htaccess

RewriteRule ^blog/([^/\.]+)/?$ blog_single.php?title=$1 [L]

This at the moment however doesn't allow the page to call from the database as the code is looking for the ID.

When i had 'myweb.com/blog/1/article-title' I had this is my .htaccess:

RewriteRule ^blog/([^/\.]+)/?/([^/\.]+)/?$ blog_single.php?id=$1&title=$2 [L]

And that called from the database fine.