Mod Rewrite Regex Negative Lookahead

Question

I am trying to match all URIs that begin with #/tool_[a-z\-]+# except if it's followed by /public. Such as /tool_calculator or whatever.

For example, if the URI begins with /tool_store-front or /tool_store-front/anything-but-public then I want to redirect them to HTTPS. So, /tool_store-front/public would not redirect.

Here's what I have and it's not working

RewriteCond %{HTTPS} =off
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} ^/?tool_[a-z-]+(?!/public.+) [OR]
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} ^/?secure
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !^/?secure/public/info
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ https://www.example.org%{REQUEST_URI} [NC,L]

Seaweed

Answer 1

You can also change your negative lookahead condition to this using a possessive quantifier:

RewriteCond %{HTTPS} =off
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} ^/tool_[a-z-]++(?!/public) [NC,OR]
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} ^/secure(?!/public/info) [NC]
RewriteRule ^ https://www.example.org%{REQUEST_URI} [NE,R=301,L]

You can also use this negative lookahead:

RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} ^/tool_[a-z-]+(?!.*/public) [NC,OR]

Problem in your condition ^/?tool_[a-z-]+(?!/public.+) is that regex engine is backtracking [a-z]+, one position before / to assert negative lookahead (?!/public.+) true.

Blucher

It worked. Thanks <3. But how is it that it's backtracking [a-z]+ as you said? I didn't quite follow :'( – Seaweed

See this demo to understand better Check regex debugger link to understand backtracking part better. Once that is clear change regex to ^/tool_[a-z-]++(?!/public) and now there will be no match and again check regex debugger – Blucher