Heroku PHP cedar stack: can I do URL rewrites? - mod-rewrite

Question

I'm running a PHP app on the Heroku cedar stack. Is there a way to set up URL rewrite rules? I had hoped to do this in .htaccess files, but only access control directives are recognized in this.
I see that the Ruby advice is to use rake rewrite, but what needs to happen for a PHP app have URL rewrite configuration on Heroku?

Answer 1

You can use a normal .htaccess file with PHP on Heroku. Simply create a .htaccess file with the re-write conditions, similar to this:
<IfModule mod_rewrite.c>
RewriteEngine On
RewriteBase /
RewriteRule ^index\.php$ - [L]
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteRule . /index.php [L]
</IfModule>
This example lifted from WordPress. I believe all urls now redirect to /index.php. Example here: https://github.com/catsby/php-heroku-htaccess and app here: http://php-heroku-htaccess.herokuapp.com/something

Answer 2

So to partially answer my own question and continue what I alluded to in the comments, here's the difference between a Mac and a heroku .htaccess file that I needed to make:
RewriteRule ^([^/]+)/([^/]+)/([^/]+)/$ $1/$2?arg=$3 #Mac
RewriteRule ^([^/]+)/([^/]+)/([^/]+)/$ $1/$2.php?arg=$3 #heroku
This is more of a workaround than a solution. I believe the apache versions are different, but in the end I just capitulated on debugging this further and use a .htaccess file with two sections in it that I comment/uncomment.