Apache URL Re-writing not functioning properly

Question

I am trying to use apache-rewrite rule to convert the below URL:

http://localhost/foo/bar/news.php?id=24

Into this

Answer 1

This seems to be a complicated problem because you do not know where it really is doing wrong.

I would suggest you divide what you want to do into small parts and make each of them work properly before you join them together. For example:

 1. Make sure .htaccess file is readable and can do some simple thing, preventing directory indexing for instance.
 2. Make sure you can redirect something with simple html code.
 3. Make sure you can run Felipe's example code successfully. From here you can get good picture of what is going on. 

And as a side note:

It is more common to rewrite like this:

http://localhost/DIRECTORY/AID/news.php?a_id=24 TO -->
http://localhost/DIRECTORY/AID/news/24_this_is_article_title 

Notice the id 24 is still carried over to the rewritten url. That will make pattern matching simpler and avoid unnecessary processing of title duplication.