im looking to make directories with ? in it. how do I do this.


for example youtsite.com/?mydirectory

I am on hostgator, and I thought it was simple as just creating it but all that comes up is a blank

I think your "mydirectory" needs a default index file in it, eg index.html, index.php, index.asp, index.shtml... Try doing that and let me know how you go. I've been wondering myself, which is embarrassing since I have been doing web development since 2007.

EDIT: I put "/?" on the end of one of my site's urls and I got shown the home page (which is obviously the index page).

I haven't done it myself, but I believe it can be done by using mod_rewrite in .htaccess.

EDIT:
See this:

Code:

http://corz.org/serv/tricks/htaccess2.php

Just rewriting the ?directory to directory should work. Lemme know how it goes.

.htaccess

Code:

<IfModule mod_rewrite.c>
RewriteEngine On
RewriteBase /
RewriteRule ^index\.php$ - [L]
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
#RewriteRule . index.php [L]
RewriteRule (.*) index.php?$1 [PT,QSA]
</IfModule>

index.php

PHP Code:

$page = $_SERVER['argv'][0];
//if pulling from a database, make sure to secure $page
if (empty($page)){ $page = "index.php"; }
//Example http://mysite.com/?folder
//$page will = 'folder' 


Originally Posted by hi.imandrew

.htaccess

Code:

<IfModule mod_rewrite.c>
RewriteEngine On
RewriteBase /
RewriteRule ^index\.php$ - [L]
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
#RewriteRule . index.php [L]
RewriteRule (.*) index.php?$1 [PT,QSA]
</IfModule>

index.php

PHP Code:

$page = $_SERVER['argv'][0];
//if pulling from a database, make sure to secure $page
if (empty($page)){ $page = "index.php"; }
//Example http://mysite.com/?folder
//$page will = 'folder' 


I couldent get this to work

I placed the .htaccess in the directory named ? and created the index.php
created a folder called lol with a index page and calling mysite.com/?lol nothing appeared.

any help

The ? after the URL means that whatever variables follow are parsed by whatever engine the site runs on, ie. PHP, ASP, Perl. In short, not a valid directory character.

The http://yourdomain.com/?whatever is the same as http://yourdomain.com/index.php?whatever

The htaccess file just gets rid of the index.php part in the URL but redirects all page requests through the file itself. Not the easiest to explain!

Just drop that htaccess file into your root directory - you don't need to make any ? directories etc

I still aint getting it right

this how my root looks

folder
lol

.htacess
index.php

I call mydomain.com/?lol

and nothing

index.php

PHP Code:

<?php
$page = $_SERVER['argv'][0];
if (!file_exists($page)){
 //check to make sure the file or directory exists, don't allow redirection to other websites.
 header("Location: main.htm");
 //redirect to this page by default
}else{
 header("Location: $page");
}
die();
//Examples:
//http://mysite.com/?lol
//will redirect you to http://mysite.com/lol
//http://mysite.com/?test.php
//will redirect you to http://mysite.com/test.php
?>

Originally Posted by hi.imandrew

index.php

PHP Code:

<?php
$page = $_SERVER['argv'][0];
if (!file_exists($page)){
 //check to make sure the file or directory exists, don't allow redirection to other websites.
 header("Location: main.htm");
 //redirect to this page by default
}else{
 header("Location: $page");
}
die();
//Examples:
//http://mysite.com/?lol
//will redirect you to http://mysite.com/lol
//http://mysite.com/?test.php
//will redirect you to http://mysite.com/test.php
?>

thanks bro, I pmed you

if ur web site is static just create directories using your hosting file manager or a ftp program , but if you have a dynamic php script u should use the htaccess method

The way your wanting to do it, instead of redirecting, use an iframe, or preferred way, an include file.

index.php

PHP Code:

<?php
$page = $_SERVER['argv'][0];
if (!file_exists($page.".htm")){
 //check to make sure the file exists
 $page = "main";
 //include this page by default
}
if (strstr($page, ".")){ 
 //hack attempt
 $page = "main";
}
require_once($page.".htm");
//hard code extension to prevent getting hacked
//http://mysite.com/?lol will include lol.htm
?>

I've messaged you on skype if you need further assistance.