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Making Apache Parse .html files as .php Files

Posted on 05/13/2009 at 12:09 pm by Kevin Wentworth
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When re-designing a site, or somehow being locked into a given web site structure that uses .html (or .htm) file extensions, it's a good idea to keep the file names the same (especially if the site has been around a while and has good search engine visibility).  Think you can't use PHP on .html or .htm web pages?  Think again.  With apache it's as easy as modifying the .htaccess file.

On a server with PHP 5, add this line to your .htaccess file:

On a server with PHP 4, add this line to your .htaccess file:

That should do the trick.  Now you can include PHP scripting in any .html file.  Update those old .html files to include('templates.php')!

Are you having trouble naming the file on Windows?  It's easy.

Cheers,

-Kevin Wentworth