website.com/username

[cancer10]

Hi

I was wondering how do they do that website.com/any-username thing?


Just like when you signup at twitter, you get u a vanity url like twitter.com/cancer10


Does anyone know?

Pls if someone can explain


Thanks

[NogDog]

Most likely via URL rewriting at the web server level, converting the user name portion to a URL query string "name=value" pair. Then it would be available to the script as $_GET['name'], which would be used (after sanitizing and escaping) to query the DB to display the user's data.

In other words, the web server would rewrite "http://www.example.com/nogdog" to "http://www.example.com/index.php?name=nogdog".

[cancer10]

What is the syntax for it?

Where do I write it?



Thanks

[NogDog]

Depends on the web server. If you're running under Apache, it would either be in the httpd.cnf file or at the directory level in a .htaccess file. Do a search on something like "apache mod_rewrite" or "apache url rewriting" for syntax and examples. (I don't happen to have it memorized.)

[Teufel]

It's usually in the .htaccess file and uses regular expressions (google it).
It could look something like this:

RewriteEngine On
RewriteRule ^[^\/\?]*$ index.php?username=$1

[ckts]

I have the re-writing working correctly but here's my problem...

I have thrusong.com/username. It forwards to thrusong.com/user/profile.php?id=username.

The problem I'm having is that profile.php thinks its in the main folder when a vanity url is used, not /user, and since the page is being used with users who set their vanity url, and those who don't, the page doesn't work as correctly for the vanity URLs.

Can I modify the conventional rewrite rule so that even when thrusong.com/username forwards to thrusong.com/user/profile.php?id=username the page still uses the links and paths correctly?

[Mindzai]

Why not just use links relative to DocumentRoot?

[Atal123]

PHP Code:

RewriteEngine on
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-F
RewriteRule ^([-_!*$@~:.a-zA-Z0-9]+)$ http://www.yoursite.com/profile.php?username=$1


place this code in the .htaccess file and upload it, it should work

[Atal123]

Originally Posted by ckts

I have the re-writing working correctly but here's my problem...

I have thrusong.com/username. It forwards to thrusong.com/user/profile.php?id=username.

The problem I'm having is that profile.php thinks its in the main folder when a vanity url is used, not /user, and since the page is being used with users who set their vanity url, and those who don't, the page doesn't work as correctly for the vanity URLs.

Can I modify the conventional rewrite rule so that even when thrusong.com/username forwards to thrusong.com/user/profile.php?id=username the page still uses the links and paths correctly?

RewriteEngine on
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-F
RewriteRule ^([-_!*$@~:.a-zA-Z0-9]+)$ http://www.yoursite.com/profile.php?username=$1

Dear CKTS, i saw your question and knew the answer to it, there for registered at this great website and wanted to share my knowledge with you on this topic

copy the code above and paste it in .htaccess file and upload it, it should do the work

[cancer10]

Question:

For multiple pages, do I have to write the code as:

RewriteEngine ON
RewriteRule ^.*/([^/\.]+)/?$ userPage.php?page=$1 [L]
RewriteRule ^.*/([^/\.]+)/?$ questions.php?page=$1 [L]
RewriteRule ^.*/([^/\.]+)/?$ comments.php?page=$1 [L]

[davidjoshua11]

Well, I think that is depended on the server, if you are under the apache like that .The problem I'm having is that profile.php thinks its in the main folder when a vanity url is used, not /user, and since the page is being used with users who set their vanity url, and those who don't, the page doesn't work as correctly for the vanity URLs.