This new post from the Mind Tree blog (at hurricanesoftware.com) asks the question "why do you care about friendly URLs in PHP applications?"

Nice URLs, readable URLs, search-engine-friendly URLs. Different names same deal. [...] Turns out this isn't all that hard with PHP - in fact it can turn into something that's very useful from more than just a readability viewpoint.

He shows how to use mod_rewrite and an .htaccess file to automatically grab the request and map it to the right place. Then, the PHP script looks at the incoming data and pushes the correct page back out to the browser. He's also included some modifications to the original idea that allow for numeric grouping and named groups for rewriting content.

From the Ask Apache blog, there's a quick tip that makes it simple to give your site's visitors the option to either download or view a PDF file no matter what their browser default is.

One of the most annoying things on the Internet for me is when I click on a link to an Adobe PDF file. For me this is annoying to the extreme because the PDF file is openened directly in your browser because of the Adobe PDF Plugin that almost all browsers have installed. [...] For me an ideal solution would be to offer me choices.

His solution uses mod_rewrite in an .htaccess file to push the visitor to a PHP file. This file grabs the filename they want and pulls in the content, pushing it back out the other side with the "attachment" header that forces a request box on the browser.

On his blog today, Brian Moon talks about setting up ForceType directives in Apache, specifically how to make "friendly URLs" without having to use mod_rewrite (which might not be installed on your server).

This has been covered before, but I was just setting up a new force type on our servers and thought I would mention it for the fun of it. You see lots of stuff about using mod_rewrite to make friendly URLs or SEO friendly URLs. But, if you are using PHP (and I guess other Apache modules) you can do it without mod_rewrite.

There's three steps to the process - adding the directive to your Apache config, making the script able to handle the request, avoiding duplication of content and returning a 404 error when there's no matching data.

Dave Dash has shared his tips on moving things smoothly from your development to production environments when using symfony and the Apache mod_rewrite module.

I think a common problem for some symfony developers that aren't too familiar with Apache's Mod Rewrite is when they move from a development environment that uses an explicit controller (e.g. frontend_dev.php is requested from the server explicitly) to their production app which implicitly calls index.php (e.g. '/' or some other route is passed to index.php) things stop working.

To combat the situation is easy - it's a simple update to the .htaccess file default to symfony to add a LoadModule line to start up mod_rewrite.

The phpaddiction website has posted the first part of a series today covering URL routing with PHP (commonly used by frameworks to route requests through a centralized location.

Most PHP frameworks use some variation of the front controller pattern to centralize common code and logic. There are advantages and disadvantages to this. I am going to ignore those for now. In fact the first part of this series will explore a simple procedural URL routing method that contains many of the disadvantages. In later articles we will build upon this basis and address the disadvantages.

He walks through the steps to get things set up - working with mod_rewrite, creating the "entry point" for your application, and finally, how to execute a command based on the request's action.

In a new entry today, Tim Bromhead shares his method for creating "super friendly urls" for a site's users using mod_rewrite:

Today we are going to show how to make the URLs with spaces super easy to type for users. bla.st uses dashes in the URLs to represent spaces eg. http//bla.st/web-design/. We chose dashes over underscores because underscores can get lost with underlined links, and we think they look nicer.

He includes the Apache config information for working with the VirtualHost entry and the simple PHP script to handle the requests. It looks in the SERVER superglobal, at the QUERY_STRING to see what the user is requesting and does an append and redirect accordingly. This example is made to take any form of a space in the URL (including underscores and %20), parse it out, and pass the user along correctly to the page they want.

There's a quick post on the bla.st blog about a handy method to create "pretty URLs" for your website without changing your code (much). With this example, it's all about Apache and mod_rewrite.

For our bla.st project, we decided to put all URLs through a single PHP script, and process them there. The advantage is then we can do what ever we want with the URLs.

They provide the settings and directives that you'll need to drop into Apache and what they're doing so you can customize them to your site. There's even a brief PHP example at the end showing how to get the information from the URL and into a usable form.

The 'true hacker!' blog has a new post today that gives you a quick four step process for creating some clean, Digg-style URLs for your site with some simple Apache configuration changes (mod_rewrite).

You might have noticed that Digg has a cool way of maintaining clean URLs. Digg actually uses LAMP - Linux/Apache/MySQL/PHP. But where are the .php extensions? The answer is here. 4 steps to implement your own Digg style clean URLs.

His method turns on Apache's rewrite engine (you do have mod_rewrite enabled, don't you?) and adds a rule to push all of the requests to two default PHP files. There's also a ForceType method that can be used to achieve the same effect. One .htaccess file later, you're in business and the PHP script only needs to access the $_SERVER['REQUEST_URI'] value to get the parameters.

On the Shadow Fox Network, there's a new tutorial that shows how to combine the Apache mod_rewrite functionality with some PHP functions to make passing variables over your rewritten URL easy.

You can't pass variables well without adding more commands to mod_rewrite. So here you'll learn to add unlimited parameters to your links with only one simple PHP function.

He starts with a mini-refresher course on the contents of the previous article and moves to the simple rewrite example that makes it possible - a two line statement. Then, it's on to the PHP - again, a simple function that does things simply, grabs all of the parameters from the URL and splits them out into a global parameters array. He even includes a simple example as a tutorial you can try out with the demo.

Not everyone wants to convert their application or create a completely new one just to use the Zend Framework. Some just want to use their existing site and attach the ZF where they want, adding its functionality to the mix. That's what this new article on Alexander Netkachev blog is all about.

If you created the application that uses the Zend_Controller class, as described at the "Zend_Controller / Getting Started" manual page, you may think about how to combine your application with an existing one. For example, with the blog-like application. This is a little bit more complex then just installing it into one of the subfolders of your application.

You need to tune up mod_rewrite and here is an example of doing so. The example shows how I installed the WordPress blog system and modified the .htaccess file correctly to run the installed application.

He walks through the steps of the installation:

• downloading WordPress
• setting up a mod_rewrite rule
• modifying it to accomidate the installation of the Zend Framework

He also includes a note that, when you add another application, you might need to add another rewrite rule to accomidate it.