CODEWITHSUNDEEP
apachehttp-status-code-404errordocument
Fred Riley
Fred Riley

Reputation: 333

Apache ErrorDocument: showing 404 URL

I suspect this can't be done, but here goes anyway. Is there a way, on a static site, to show the URL the user is trying to reach when you use the Apache directive ErrorDocument to redirect a 404 File Not Found error to a custom page? For instance, if you try:

http://www.fredriley.org.uk/dingbat/arsebiscuits

the default 404 error says:

The requested URL /dingbat/arsebiscuits was not found on this server.

So the URL must be in an environment variable. Can I get at that in a custom error document? I'd like to tell users the URL rather than just give them a generic error document. I know I can do this easily enough in PHP, but the site comprises static HTML docs only.

Upvotes: 1

Views: 819

Answers (1)

Álvaro González
Álvaro González

Reputation: 146660

Having a static site does not prevent you from having a dynamic error page. You can use whatever server-side technology your hosting service offers.

If you can use PHP, you can simply pick a static template, change its extension to *.php and add a little dynamic snippet:

<p><?php echo htmlspecialchars($_SERVER['REQUEST_URI']); ?></p>

If you can use SSI, it's very similar:

<p><!--#echo var="REQUEST_URI" --></span></p>

The REQUEST_URI variable contains the local part of the URL as typed by the user (except hash). It's a good choice.

Upvotes: 1

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