I just use the following conditions for rewriting

RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteRule .......

i.e. not rewritting is request uri resolves to a dir or file.

It's not the easiest way to ignore mod_rewrite, not at all! I found a way I believe it's much easier and above all portable: just use an .htaccess file, put it inside every directory you want to be ignored and inside it write "mod_rewrite off" . That's it ;) the power of inheritance under apache....do you like it? :) let me know at php@caregnato.net

Here's an even easier way, so that you don't have to remember to update it each time you add a folder:

RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} -f [NC,OR]
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} -d [NC]
RewriteRule .* - [L]

Or, if you know how many rules you're going to have (if they're auto-generated or some such), you can use the "skip" flag in the RewriteRule. (WordPress does this with its automatically created rules.)

RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} -d [NC,OR]
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} -f [NC]
RewriteRule .* - [S=523]
... a block of 523 rules

Hmmm sorry but I can't understand...the way I suggested uses inheritance, so if you put an .htaccess file with "mod_rewrite off" in the "ignorethisone" directory, also ignorethisone/subfolder1 and ignorethisone/sub1/sub2 etc etc etc won't use anymore mod_rewrite! ;) All you have to do is place an almost empty htaccess file! And, of course, be tidy with you folder structure...isn't this easier than working with regular expressions??

that pass through rewrite rule just saved me from another 30 minutes of trial and error testing.

I was doing something similar with the -d, but I didn't have a -f, that probably would have fixed it for me.

Oh well, this pass through option helped, becuase i think i am only going to have a handful of files that i want to passthrough and not the whole directory.

Could you put the folder names in just one rule?

RewriteRule ^(folder_name|folder2|folder3)/.*$ - [PT]

Or would that introduce performance problems?

WordPress gives this to use
<IfModule mod_rewrite.c>
RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteRule . /index.php [L]
</IfModule>

And I can't access my script in cgi-bin because of it, and anything I have tried from here has not worked, and even made my blog break down in most cases.

Note that in addition to the RewriteCond solutions listed above, the %{REQUEST_FILENAME} variable is context sensitive.
In a <Directory /doc/root> stanza or a .htaccess file it'll work fine, but in <VirtualHost> %{REQUEST_FILENAME} = %{REQUEST_URI}.

noodl

I'm desperately trying to find a .htaccess for rewriting sub directory to subdomain. For instance,

http://www.domain.com/gardening/roses.html

to

http://roses-gardening.domain.com

Is it possible? I've got wildcard subdomains enabled, i'll check back.

It's for http://www.articlesdb.net

Thanks

Thanks!, worked just the way I wanted with a single line except you have to specify DIR name in .htaccess,
but the following works without DIR name with 3 lines.
[code]
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} -f [NC,OR]
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} -d [NC]
RewriteRule .* - [L]
[/code]

Thanks trifid, this code works perfectly.

Hi,

I'm trying to 'ignore' a zenphoto directory that is in my wordpress installation. Tried your idea, but no success.

I currently have the following in my .htaccess file:

# BEGIN WordPress
<IfModule mod_rewrite.c>
RewriteEngine On
RewriteBase /
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteRule . /index.php [L]
</IfModule>
# END WordPress

which gives me some nice names, but messes up my zenphoto gallery, spitting out raw html.

My root is a bit like this...
wp-content
wp-admin
wp-includes
zenphoto

It's ok for the htaccess to affect the first three, as they're WP, but I need to "ignore" zenphoto. How do I do this?

This has just very happily fixed it for me: http://www.andrewrollins.com/2008/01/22/wordpress-and-htaccess-password-protected-directories/

I must side with Dario, i'd rather drop a near empty htacess file, than have my hair fall out as I take my entire site down because I mussed up a regex ;)