If you put this in your .htaccess file
Options MultiViews
and you have these files
stuff/
howto.html
index.php
items.php
then all of these web addresses work
/stuff/ # brings up /stuff/index.php.
# Yes, this would have worked
`# even without MultiViews
/stuff/howto # brings up /stuff/howto.html.
#`This would not have
# worked without MultiViews,
# although you could have done
# it with a Rewrite rule, too
/stuff/items # brings up /stuff/items.php
/stuff/items/1234 # brings up /stuff/items.php,
# and sets $_SERVER['PATH_INFO']
# to '/1234'
/stuff/items/2010/03/01/how-to-plant-a-garden
# brings up /stuff/items.php, and
# sets $_SERVER['PATH_INFO']
# to '/2010/03/01/how-to-plant-a-garden'.
# If my file layout was different,
# like /stuff/items/2010.php,
# then it would have brought up
# 2010.php, and given it the PATH_INFO
# string of '/03/01/how-to-plant-a-garden'
# So it seems Apache searches the string
# from right to left for a file
Putting MultiViews in the .htaccess file is much shorter than using Rewrite rules.
But now I am looking at nginx, and I have yet to find the equivalent. It doesn't have to be so short. I know try_files would take care of the ones without PATH_INFO strings. But for the ones with PATH_INFO, the only way I've found is a Rewrite rule for each PHP file, especially the ones that take slashes in PATH_INFO.
