ColdFusion URL Re-write

[slamb0513]

Is it possible to re-write a URL query into a more search engine friendly string with ColdFusion. I know this is possible with .NET and PHP, but haven't found a way to do it using ColdFusion yet.

[Kronin555]

What have you tried? In CF, you can access CGI.PATH_INFO, which is what's populated when you request a URL like:
http://www.mysite.com/index.cfm/foo/bar/baz
In this case, CGI.PATH_INFO would contain "/foo/bar/baz"

[slamb0513]

I want to change the way the actualy URL looks to the search engine. For example, a user search for a product and the broswer sends a query string to the server, soemthing like http://www.ennisproducts.com/cfmx/products/prodType.cfm?PRODTYPE_NUM=17&SECTION_NUM=6&SECTION_NAME=B...

But instead of that long, nasty URL, I want is to be soemthing like http://www.ennisproducts.com/cfmx/products/BATTERY+CABLES

There is a way to do this on the fly but I dont know where to start.

[Kronin555]

Well, you can make it look like this:
http://www.ennisproducts.com/cfmx/products/prodType.cfm/PRODTYPE_NUM/17/SECTION_NUM/6/SECTION_NAME/B...
or if you assume the order of the parameters, you can make it look like this:
http://www.ennisproducts.com/cfmx/products/prodType.cfm/17/6/BATTERY+CABLES

Then on prodType.cfm, you use CGI.PATH_INFO and break it into a list with "/" as the delimiter. The first value is your PRODTYPE_NUM, 2nd is SECTION_NUM, and 3rd is SECTION_NAME.

[vinkie]

It's not a matter of the language you use, but of the server. Use Mod-rewrite on Apache and Isapi_rewrite on IIS.

Isapi_rewrite can be found at:
http://www.isapirewrite.com/

Rules are then written in a http.ini file in the root of the (virtual) site, your example could be rewritten to:

http://www.ennisproducts.com/17/6/battery+cables.htm

with this rule:

RewriteRule /(\d+)/(\d+)\/([^/?]+).htm /cfmx/products/prodType.cfm\?PRODTYPE_NUM=$1&SECTION=$2&SECTION_NAME=$3 [I,L]

Regards,
Paul