rewrite rule for an URL with 2 queries - .htaccess

Question

My URL looks like this:
example.com/index.php?f=directory&s=page
I want it to be like this instead:
example.com/directory/page
my rewrite rules look like this right now:
RewriteRule ^([A-Za-z0-9]+).html$ https://www.example.net/$1 [R=301,L]
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteRule ^/?(.*?)/?$ index.php?s=$1 [L]
it appears to work but not quite because if I call the queries in PHP I get something like this:
print $_GET['f'] */ it prints nothing
print $_GET['s'] */ it prints directory/page
which is not what I intend. How can I fix it?
Thank you.

Answer 1

RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteRule ^/?(.*?)/?$ index.php?s=$1 [L]
Do it like this instead:
RewriteRule ^([^/]+)/([^/]+)$ index.php?f=$1&s=$2 [L]
Request /directory/page and it internally rewrites the request to index.php?f=directory&s=page.
By making the regex more specific, the filesystem checks can probably be avoided.
To redirect from index.php?f=directory&s=page to /directory/page (if these URLs have already been indexed and/or linked to by third parties), then add the following redirect before the above directive:
RewriteCond %{ENV:REDIRECT_STATUS} ^$
RewriteCond %{QUERY_STRING} ^f=([^&]+)&s=([^&]+)$
RewriteRule ^index\.php$ /%1/%2 [R=301,L]
But you must already be linking to the canonical /directory/page URL in your application.
Test with 302s to avoid potential caching issues. Clear your browser cache before testing.
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteRule ^/?(.*?)/?$ index.php?s=$1 [L]
You are only assigning a single URL parameter s, so yes, $_GET['f'] will indeed be empty.