Can I have 'friendly' url's without a URL rewriter in IIS?

Question

Without having a url rewriter such as ISAPI_Rewrite available, is it possible to achieve the following:

I would like a user to browse to http://www.jjj.com/directo

Answer 1

You can tell IIS to have 404 and 403 errors execute a custom URL on your site (such as /urlhandler.cfm).

Then, you can parse the 'cgi.query_string' and route the application anyway you desire using cfinclude to simply include the correct 'template.cfm', or, you can reformat the input your framework is expecting, or, use a project like http://coldcourse.riaforge.org/.

Just one note, IIS will give you a URL that looks like this: '404;http://yoursite.com/the/url/you/wanted/to/route'.

Answer 2

You're asking how to cut something but telling us you're not allowed to use a knife or anything resembling one.

Here's my only clever idea using onMissingTemplate().

GET /directory/
-> 404.cfm
-> <cfinclude template="#cgi.script_name#/special.cfm" />
-> fires onMissingTemplate() where you ignore the "special.cfm" bit and just use the rest of the requested path to figure out what controller to wire up to.

This is a kludgy hack, though, so I would try to avoid it myself. Maybe if you explain why ISAPI Rewriting isn't an option, then we might be able to help further.

Answer 3

Is IIS7 on the approved list of software? That can get you native url rewriting and side-step the whole issue.

Second option -- my CFM voodoo is rusty, but I think you can setup IIS6 to look for a CFM page (like you are doing) but then step in at the application level and do the url rewriting/repointing before it actually hits the 404 page.

Another way around it -- find an ISAPI url rewriter that is, say, under the MIT license. Build your own copy. Then have them install that as part of your software package.