Good step-by-step examples?

[Michael Daly]

I find that the documentation on mod_rewrite is adequate to understand individual commands and parameters, however, most of the examples are either very simple or of the "Look - magic!" type. I have a hard time understanding the actual flow of URLs through mod_rewrite. I understand the notion that the first part of RewriteRule is done before all the associated RewriteCond statements (as per diagram in Apache docs). What I don't understand fully is the way a URL keeps coming through all the rewrite rules until it's "done".

When I look at the output from setting RewriteLogLevel 9, I can follow it in general, but sometimes I get a surprise. Just when I think that all rule processing is finished, another bit of stuff gets done with a URL I wasn't expecting. I can't tell whether this is something that comes through Apache from the Browser's URL line or from URLs inside the web page.

Are there any sources (book, web site) that show the whole process of following an arbitrarily complex URL and set of rules from start to finish, with every step of each "loop" through the rules explained?

[richardk]

I don't know of any. You could paste the rewrite log here (highlight the strange part), maybe i can help explain it.