Rewriting Question Marks

hello!

I am trying to rewrite (1) into (2).
Following a wget of a dynamic site the
actual unix filename is "foo.bar?id=44.html"
referenced in html pages as "foo.bar?id=44"

(1) http://localhost/xxx/foo.bar?id=44
(2) http://localhost/xxx/foo.bar%3Fid=44.html

The best I could come up with is the following:

RewriteCond %{QUERY_STRING} id\=([[:digit:]]+)
RewriteRule (.*) $1\%3Fid=%1\.html? [R]

if I point my browser to (2) the page shows up regularly
if I point my browser to (1) i get the following error

"The requested URL /xxx/foo.bar%3Fid=44.html was not found on this server."
....and the location bar changes: %3F turns into %253F

what am I missing?
TIA
SJ

Also sprach Surabaja Johnny:

> hello!
>
> I am trying to rewrite (1) into (2).
> Following a wget of a dynamic site the
> actual unix filename is "foo.bar?id=44.html"

Maybe you could choose a different filename - if it's always foo.bar then
44.html should do and you wouldn't have to bother with the question mark at
all.

> referenced in html pages as "foo.bar?id=44"
>
> (1) http://localhost/xxx/foo.bar?id=44
> (2) http://localhost/xxx/foo.bar%3Fid=44.html
>
> The best I could come up with is the following:
>
> RewriteCond %{QUERY_STRING} id\=([[:digit:]]+)
> RewriteRule (.*) $1\%3Fid=%1\.html? [R]

Have you tried
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ $1?id=%1.html?
or
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ $1\?id=%1.html?
(possibly without the [R] flag, unless you really need it)?

> if I point my browser to (2) the page shows up regularly

Because the RewriteCond fails, as there is no query string (the ? being
escaped). Thus, no rewriting will be done, but the %3F will be considered an
escaped ?, as intended.

> if I point my browser to (1) i get the following error
>
> "The requested URL /xxx/foo.bar%3Fid=44.html was not found on this
> server."

The query string is stripped off before the rewriting stuff is run, so
RewriteRule will match (.*) against xxx/foo.bar and, as it matches, will
replace it by xxx/foo.bar%3Fid=44.html. This is sent to the browser to tell
it to request this new URL....

> ...and the location bar changes: %3F turns into %253F

.... in the process, the special character % is escaped and becomes %25 (25
is the hex code of %). So then the browser requests a URL containing %3F
rather than ? and then it's no wonder it can't be found.

> "The requested URL /xxx/foo.bar%3Fid=44.html was not found on this server."
> ...and the location bar changes: %3F turns into %253F

use noescape flag [NE,R] for rewriterule.

Joachim