htaccess: Remove trailing slash from URL ending with .xml/ only

Question

I need to remove trailing slash from URLs ending with .xml/ only .. For this purpose I've created a Rewrite Condition and Rule which is working perfectly fine for the test link http://website.com/test.xml/

Test Link: http://htaccess.mwl.be?share=6fe08232-438a-53fa-8f1a-1f7f69b77b6f

The problem is when I place the rule in WordPress .htaccess file, it doesn't work at all! Seems like WordPress or YOAST Permalink structure is overriding the rule .. please help!

# BEGIN WordPress
<IfModule mod_rewrite.c>
RewriteEngine On
RewriteBase /
RewriteRule ^index\.php$ - [L]
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} /(.*).xml/$
RewriteRule ^ /%1.xml [L]
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteRule . /index.php [L]
</IfModule>
# END WordPress

Note:

Please note that this is not a physical file .. using rewrite rules to generate sitemap on the run! This is a wordpress page in fact!

add_rewrite_rule('([^/]*)-placeholder.xml','index.php?page_id=123&custom‌​-slug=$matches[1]','‌​top');

Answer 1

If you're outputting a sitemap, there's no reason to wait for the query for your page- which is what is producing the redirect.

Hook an earlier action and you won't need anything to counter the trailing slash, because it won't happen-

EDIT

Here's a complete version with registering query vars, rules, and parse_request action:

// add the custom query vars
// WordPress will not parse query vars in rules
// if they are not added to the list of valid query vars
function wpd_sitemap_query_var( $vars ){
    $vars[] = 'svc-slug';
    $vars[] = 'svc-offset';
    return $vars;
}
add_filter( 'query_vars', 'wpd_sitemap_query_var' );

// add the rules
function wpd_sitemap_rewrite_rules() {
    add_rewrite_rule(
        '([^/]*)-svc-([0-9]+).xml',
        'index.php?page_id='.get_field('dynamic_sitemap','option').'&svc-slug=$matches[1]&svc-offset=$matches[2]',
        'top'
    );
    add_rewrite_rule(
        '([^/]*)-svc.xml',
        'index.php?page_id='.get_field('dynamic_sitemap','option').'&svc-slug=$matches[1]',
        'top'
    );
}
add_action('init', 'wpd_sitemap_rewrite_rules', 10, 0);

// intercept the query and test if our query var is set
// this means one of our rules matched and we should show the sitemap
function wpd_sitemap_parse_request( $query ){
    if( isset( $query->query_vars['svc-slug'] ) ){
        echo '<pre>';
        print_r( $query->query_vars );
        echo '</pre>';

        // halt further execution after sitemap is output
        die;
    }
}
add_action( 'parse_request', 'wpd_sitemap_parse_request' );

Answer 2

RewriteRule ^ /%1.xml [L]

This should be an external redirect, not an internal rewrite. (Otherwise it won't look like it's doing anything, as the visible URL won't change.) So, you need the R (redirect) flag. For example:

 RewriteRule ^ /%1.xml [R,L]

This is a temporary (302) redirect. Change R to R=301 to make it a permanent (301) redirect - but only when you are sure it's working OK. (Since 301s are cached hard by the browser and can make testing problematic.)

However, you don't need the RewriteCond directive. This can be done in a single RewriteRule (it will also be more efficient to do so). This should also go before your existing internal rewrites and ideally before the # BEGIN WordPress block, as otherwise your customisation could be overridden in future updates.

So, all you need is (at the top of your file):

RewriteRule ^(.+)\.xml/$ /$1.xml [R,L]

Remember to escape literal dots in your regex.

UPDATE: And yes, that should be $1 (as a backreference to the RewriteRule pattern) as opposed to %1 (a backreference to the last matched CondPattern).

Answer 3

What exactly worked out for me ..

The issue was due to WordPress canonical redirects .. The use of /%postname%/ in permalink structure was redirecting the custom template to the trailing slash URL.

I simply removed the template_redirect filter for canonical redirects .. and now the link works in both cases i.e. with or without trailing slash.

Here is my code for reference.. 1234 is the example page id for the template used to generate dynamic sitemap.

//Disabling canonical redirects for sitemap function disable_sitemap_redirect() { global $wp; $current_url = home_url(add_query_arg(array(),$wp->request)); $current_url = $current_url . $_SERVER['REDIRECT_URL']; $id = url_to_postid($current_url); if($id == 1234) : remove_filter('template_redirect', 'redirect_canonical'); endif; } add_action('init', 'disable_sitemap_redirect', 10, 0);