[Apache] Discard QUERY_STRING

Apache_mod_rewrite is a lot of fun but sometime it syntax is very “twisted”. For example let say you want to make a conditional rewrite on the url, query string included. You will probably write something like this:

RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^www.foobar.com$
RewriteCond %{QUERY_STRING}  ^queryType=3&item=services&itemId=47$
RewriteRule ^/initial/cms/php/workflow.php?$ http://www.foobar.com/Home/Our-services/Business [NC,R=301,L]

Now problem right ? Yep except as the destination url doesn’t have it own query string mod_rewrite will keep the original query string ! Damned. To prevent this, write instead this:

RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^www.foobar.com$
RewriteCond %{QUERY_STRING}  ^queryType=3&item=services&itemId=47$
RewriteRule ^/initial/cms/php/workflow.php?$ http://www.foobar.com/Home/Our-services/Business? [NC,R=301,L]

or append the QSD flag.