Setting up a page that will intercept all pages that do not already exist?

[Joshua Beall]

Hi All,

I would like to setup my site so that when a page is request that does not
exist, transfer is instead passed to a certain page that I specify. For
instance, if the user requests http://mysite.com/pages/contact and that is
not a valid page or directory, then the request is handed to
http://mysite.com/pages/display.php or something like that.

I am wondering what the best way to do this is - I know that I could use an
..htaccess file to redirect 404 errors, but I would rather not give a 404
error in the first place. Is there a better/other way? I seem to remember
having read about another way... but I can't seem to remember...

This is in a LAMP environment, and does not need to be portable to Windows
or any other webserver.

Any help would be greatly appreciated!

His,
-Josh

[Daniel Tryba]

In comp.lang.php Joshua Beall <jb****@donotsp am.remove.me.he raldic.us> wrote:

I am wondering what the best way to do this is - I know that I could use an
.htaccess file to redirect 404 errors, but I would rather not give a 404
error in the first place.

It's called a 404 handler, but it doens't have to return an http error
status. In the 404 handler script you can either return a 404 (the
default status) or choose to do anything else you might come up with,
like redirecting to the correct url in case of small typos. The client
will never find out it was handled by the 404 handler...

[Gary L. Burnore]

On Tue, 07 Dec 2004 21:29:00 GMT, "Joshua Beall"
<jb****@donotsp am.remove.me.he raldic.us> wrote:

Hi All,

I would like to setup my site so that when a page is request that does not
exist, transfer is instead passed to a certain page that I specify. For
instance, if the user requests http://mysite.com/pages/contact and that is
not a valid page or directory, then the request is handed to
http://mysite.com/pages/display.php or something like that.

I am wondering what the best way to do this is - I know that I could use an
.htaccess file to redirect 404 errors, but I would rather not give a 404
error in the first place. Is there a better/other way? I seem to remember
having read about another way... but I can't seem to remember...

This is in a LAMP environment, and does not need to be portable to Windows
or any other webserver.

Any help would be greatly appreciated!

This is really more of a webserver question and it really depends on
the webserver you're using. You mention .htaccess, so I'll assume
apache.

edit the httpd.conf file (/etc/httpd/conf/httpd.conf

and look for this:

#ErrorDocument 404 /missing.html
Uncomment it and change the url to what you want.

restart the server
--
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[Joshua Beall]

"Daniel Tryba" <sp**@tryba.inv alid> wrote in message
news:41******** *************** @dreader3.news. xs4all.nl...

In comp.lang.php Joshua Beall <jb****@donotsp am.remove.me.he raldic.us>
wrote:

I am wondering what the best way to do this is - I know that I could use
an
.htaccess file to redirect 404 errors, but I would rather not give a 404
error in the first place.

It's called a 404 handler, but it doens't have to return an http error
status. In the 404 handler script you can either return a 404 (the
default status) or choose to do anything else you might come up with,
like redirecting to the correct url in case of small typos. The client
will never find out it was handled by the 404 handler...

Ah ok.

Are there other ways to do it? What are they? Do they provide advantages
of some sort? Is there any reason to not go the 404 handler route?

[Joshua Beall]

>>This is in a LAMP environment, and does not need to be portable to Windows

or any other webserver.

This is really more of a webserver question and it really depends on
the webserver you're using. You mention .htaccess, so I'll assume
apache.

The 'A' in LAMP stands for Apache.

Are their other ways to do this sort of thing, and if so, do they provides
advantages over the 404 handler method?

[paul]

You could place redirect index.php scripts using the header() function
in each of those mystery folders if they are specific known ones,
otherwise the .htaccess solution doesn't appear to be an error to the
user, it just proceeds to the page you specify instead of showing the
error message. The faulty url actually remains in the address bar, at
least with mozilla.

Joshua Beall wrote:

Hi All,

I would like to setup my site so that when a page is request that does not
exist, transfer is instead passed to a certain page that I specify. For
instance, if the user requests http://mysite.com/pages/contact and that is
not a valid page or directory, then the request is handed to
http://mysite.com/pages/display.php or something like that.

I am wondering what the best way to do this is - I know that I could use an
.htaccess file to redirect 404 errors, but I would rather not give a 404
error in the first place. Is there a better/other way? I seem to remember
having read about another way... but I can't seem to remember...

This is in a LAMP environment, and does not need to be portable to Windows
or any other webserver.

Any help would be greatly appreciated!

His,
-Josh

[Daniel Tryba]

Joshua Beall <jb****@donotsp am.remove.me.he raldic.us> wrote:
[404 handler]

Ah ok.

Are there other ways to do it? What are they? Do they provide advantages
of some sort?
You could use the rewriteengine to redirect all requests to 1 script.
http://httpd.apache.org/docs/misc/rewriteguide.html
Is there any reason to not go the 404 handler route?

Can't think of any.

[Rob]

"Joshua Beall" <jb****@donotsp am.remove.me.he raldic.us> schreef in bericht
news:wgptd.1810 $N%6.99@trnddc0 5...

Hi All,

I would like to setup my site so that when a page is request that does not
exist, transfer is instead passed to a certain page that I specify. For
instance, if the user requests http://mysite.com/pages/contact and that is
not a valid page or directory, then the request is handed to
http://mysite.com/pages/display.php or something like that.

I am wondering what the best way to do this is - I know that I could use
an .htaccess file to redirect 404 errors, but I would rather not give a
404 error in the first place. Is there a better/other way? I seem to
remember having read about another way... but I can't seem to remember...

This is in a LAMP environment, and does not need to be portable to Windows
or any other webserver.

Any help would be greatly appreciated!

His,
-Josh

When using a .htaccess file you only catch the 404 error and you don't need
to "give the 404 error"(?). As a response you can redirect to any page
without letting the user know it was a 404 error. i.e.:

[.htaccess]
# "404 Not Found",
ErrorDocument 404 http://mysite.com/pages/display.php
HTH Rob

[d]

hi!

mod_rewrite in Apache supports what you want to do. I'm not going to tell
you exactly how to do it - you should read the docs yourself if you want to
go this route.

http://httpd.apache.org/docs/mod/mod_rewrite.html

d.

ok, two hints - "RewriteCon d" and "-f" :)

"Joshua Beall" <jb****@donotsp am.remove.me.he raldic.us> wrote in message
news:wgptd.1810 $N%6.99@trnddc0 5...

Hi All,

I would like to setup my site so that when a page is request that does not
exist, transfer is instead passed to a certain page that I specify. For
instance, if the user requests http://mysite.com/pages/contact and that is
not a valid page or directory, then the request is handed to
http://mysite.com/pages/display.php or something like that.

I am wondering what the best way to do this is - I know that I could use
an .htaccess file to redirect 404 errors, but I would rather not give a
404 error in the first place. Is there a better/other way? I seem to
remember having read about another way... but I can't seem to remember...

This is in a LAMP environment, and does not need to be portable to Windows
or any other webserver.

Any help would be greatly appreciated!

His,
-Josh

[usenet]

On Wed, 08 Dec 2004 08:55:22 GMT, "Rob" <reply_@news_gr oup.please> wrote:

"Joshua Beall" <jb****@donotsp am.remove.me.he raldic.us> schreef in bericht
news:wgptd.181 0$N%6.99@trnddc 05...

Hi All,

I would like to setup my site so that when a page is request that does not
exist, transfer is instead passed to a certain page that I specify. For
instance, if the user requests http://mysite.com/pages/contact and that is
not a valid page or directory, then the request is handed to
http://mysite.com/pages/display.php or something like that.

I am wondering what the best way to do this is - I know that I could use
an .htaccess file to redirect 404 errors, but I would rather not give a
404 error in the first place. Is there a better/other way? I seem to
remember having read about another way... but I can't seem to remember...

This is in a LAMP environment, and does not need to be portable to Windows
or any other webserver.

Any help would be greatly appreciated!

His,
-Josh

When using a .htaccess file you only catch the 404 error and you don't need
to "give the 404 error"(?). As a response you can redirect to any page
without letting the user know it was a 404 error. i.e.:

[.htaccess]
# "404 Not Found",
ErrorDocumen t 404 http://mysite.com/pages/display.php
HTH Rob

To take this a step beyond 404 : If there are specific pages which you know to
no longer exist (as opposed to random 404 errors), it's probably wiser to return
a 301 and direct the user agent to the new page automagically. This will, in
theory, cause proxies and search engines to update their old links to the new
page, as opposed to simply deleting them.

For your example :

[.htaccess]
redirect 301 /pages/contact http://mysite.com/pages/display.php

As others have mentioned, an Apache solution is more appropriate in this case
than something scripted in PHP.

HTH !