Using mod_rewrite to rewrite url

Hi All,
On the site I have been working on the resulting url from a search is ***/showdr.php?mainID=1 I know it can be rewritten but what I am wondering is 1. can it be done pulling MULTIPLE db fields, such as ***/showdr.php?firstName lastName with firstName and lastName being the db fields and
2. is there any disadvantage of doing this.

Thanks.

You can do a mod rewrite for any number of parameters. I don't think there is a disadvantage other than the added complexity of maintaining your htaccess files with the different ur combinations you want to account for.

I have tried this in both the root directory .htaccess and a .htaccess file in the /mdb directory that the showdr.php file is in and cant get it to work.
Do you see anything wrong. The 2 db field names are correct as is the ?mainID field .

RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{QUERY_STRING} ^mainID=([0-9]+)
RewriteRule ^([A-Z]{2})/([\+a-z\ ]+)\.php$ showdr.php?firstName=$1&lastName=$2

Also can a underscore be added between the first and last name field above.
Just dont see what I am missing.

I'm not really an expert on mod rewrites, and I don't know exactly what you are trying to do.

It looks like you are trying to take any url that ends with ?mainID= and then a number. Then if that url has two parts and a slash you redirect it to the showdr.php page passing the variables as firstName and lastName.

I'd try removing the RewriteCond line and see if it works. Get the RewriteRule working properly and then add back the Condition so you can at least isolate which line is failing.

That was not at all what I was trying to do.. I screwed that up..
Ok I figured this part out.

RewriteEngine on
RewriteRule ^Doctor/([0-9a-zA-Z]+) showdr.php?mainID=$1 [NC,L]

it takes the url ... showdr.php?mainID=1 and will make it accessible with ...Doctor/1

But what I am trying to do is make it Doctor/firstName lastName (firstName and lastName are the actual db column names.)

Is this possible with mod_rewrite or would that require modifying the php?
Thanks.

If you had a page that already worked with ?firstname=bob&lastname=smith then you could do a mod rewrite to make it work with doctor/bob smith.