why doesn't my rewrite rule work? (is there something weird with wordpress htaccess?)

Question

My ht access includes:

Options +FollowSymLinks
RewriteEngine on
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} ^/preview/(.*)\-[0-9]+$
RewriteRule ^/preview/(.*)\-[0-9]+$ /$1 [R=301,L]

but still when I try to access something such as:

http://sg.wyli.co.uk/preview/coronation-street-the-mystery-of-the-missing-hotpot-recipe-1806

it doesn't redirect (where http://sg.wyli.co.uk/coronation-street-the-mystery-of-the-missing-hotpot-recipe will work...)

im using a plugin: Wp htaccess Control to add the rule, so it's definitely being added to the wordpress rewrite rule system, but it's not having any effect?

are there any more wordpress quirks I need to avoid? Is there a basic error I'm missing?

Answer 1

Sooo the problem was my brackets around the content in the condition I think.

I'm still not so hot on these things, but I use these rules and they work:

RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} ^/(review|preview|feature).*\-[0-9]+$
RewriteRule ^review/(.*)\-[0-9]+$ /$1 [R=301,L]
RewriteRule ^preview/(.*)\-[0-9]+$ /$1 [R=301,L]
RewriteRule ^feature/(.*)\-[0-9]+$ /$1 [R=301,L]

note: the (review|preview|feature) but is an x OR y OR z, as I have the rule working for any of those folders specifically.