URI pattern baffling problem

[Igor Sysoev]

On Tue, Feb 08, 2011 at 01:24:38PM +0000, António P. P. Almeida wrote:

> On 8 Fev 2011 13h11 WET, igor at sysoev.ru wrote:
> 
> > On Tue, Feb 08, 2011 at 11:55:27AM +0100, Gregory Agerba wrote:
> >
> >> Thanks Antonio, now that worked.
> >
> > You should think not in negative way:
> >
> > if ($request_uri !~* "^/documents/(?:[A... ") { { rewrite ^
> > http://www.google.com/ permanent; }
> >
> > but in positive way:
> >
> > location ~* "^/documents/(?:[A... " {
> > ...
> > }
> >
> > location / { rewrite ^ http://www.google.com/ permanent; }
> >
> 
> I agree. But the problem stems from the fact that most applications
> don't ever consider the configuration at the server or virtual host
> level. Apache has the directory context (.htaccess) so people tend to
> make their applications depend on it as much as possible and on the
> server or vhost config as little as possible.
> 
> Since you cannot define locations in a directory context (.htaccess)
> the only solution is to think backwards and hack something revolving
> around mod_rewrite.
> 
> It's a deeply rooted habit. It's not easy to make the transition to
> Nginx where there's no directory context, hence things must be thought
> out differently from the outset. But yes we should insist on changing
> that habit. Thinking backwards makes Nginx config feel strange and
> unnatural.

Any Apache-based application can be configured inside <Location> if
it can be configured via .htaccess.
The single reason why .htaccess is so popular is shared hosting.


-- 
Igor Sysoev
http://sysoev.ru/en/