.htaccess to redirect to 404 Error Message rather than empty html.php page

PHP
1

Using a song database as an example, I am using the below code:-

.htaccess (placed in root directory, with 404.html.php in the ‘includes’ directory; ‘includes’ directory is also located in the root directory; and I am running server on Apache)

ErrorDocument 404 /includes/404.html.php
Options +FollowSymLinks
RewriteEngine on
RewriteRule ^song/([0-9]*)/([-()a-z0-9]*)$ song/?song_id=$1&song_url=$2 [L,QSA]
RewriteRule ^artist/([-()a-z0-9]*)$ artist/?artist_url=$1 [L,QSA]

This outputs, i.e.:-

songdatabase/song/47/she-loves-you
songdatabase/artist/the-beatles

With song, both ‘song_id’ (unique) and ‘song_url’ (not unique) must be matched (I could just use ‘song_id’ to call it but I want the song title to be displayed in the URL); and with artist only ‘artist_url’ (unique) must be matched.

The 404 works, i.e. when entering a URL such as:-

songdatabase/home/jkehfkudsf

However, entering the below examples (i.e. URLs that pass non-existing variable info), instead of receiving the 404 Error page, I receive the template html.php page for song or artist respectively, just without any information displayed as obviously no existing variable info is passed via the URL.

songdatabase/song/7638384/
songdatabase/song/47/
songdatabase/song/47/jkfhsdudjkbvd
songdatabase/artist/dnfksjdhdkchd

Is there any way of making any such instances automatically redirect to the 404 page?

I could conduct a check at the start of the respective indexes for song and artist whether there is a match and if not then redirect to 404, else continue with the code.

But I am sure there must be a way that this can be done more simply and cleanly within the .htaccess file (I think using mod_write / RewriteCond), right?

Thanks!

2

How would htaccess know a song/artist doesnt exist before your script queries the database?

3

Sorry, I’ve only recently found out about .htaccess and am still learning about its capabilities and limitations. Would you suggest best solution is to check for existing song/artist at the start of each index and redirect to 404 if applicable, else continue with code?

4

That would be exactly what i would do.

5

songdatabase/artist/dnfksjdhdkchd

This could imply instances such as a recently removed artist, or a slightly malformed url (accidentally truncated when passed from another website for example).

In the case of a partially correct request I would want to keep the user engaged … maybe show most popular artists, or do attempt a search using … where artist_name LIKE “dnfksjdhdkchd%” before blandly issuing a 404.

2c

6

That’s a good idea. Given I’ll now be doing the check at the start of each directory’s index, if there’s no match then I can redirect to a specific page for each (i.e. popular songs for incorrect song URLs, popular artists for incorrect artist URLs, etc.)

Thanks!