Replace URL query string with slash for a cleaner URL

Question

I have created a new content type with a body and multiple fields.

I use the following query string

?article=referral-partners

to change the content of the node's body according to the value of the value of article.

The full URL looks like this (with my path alias I created):

http://localhost/userguides/contacts/my-first-user-guide?article=referral-partners

I would like to clean up the url to look like this instead:

http://localhost/userguides/contacts/my-first-user-guide/article/referral-partners

How can I do this with Drupal 7?

Answer 1

Unless there's a chance your URL is going to change a lot as far as "depth" goes, you can use arg() to access any element in the path.

If your path is userguides/contacts/my-first-user-guide/article/referral-partners, you would use something like this...

$article = arg(4);     // $article is set to 'referral-partners'

... and then just check the value of $article. If the code can potentially be run on nodes or pages you don't want it to, then you'd also probably want to check other "args" for safety. Generally Drupal will let you tack on all kinds of extra path elements without needing to go through extra hoops as long as the initial path is a real one.

Answer 2

You can use something like this on your custom module for the redirects with the query strings.

/*
 * custom redirect with query string
 * module implements hook_init()
 */

function MyModule_init() {
  if ($_GET['q'] == 'userguides/contacts/my-first-user-guide/article/referral-partners') {
    drupal_goto('userguides/contacts/my-first-user-guide', array('query' => array('article' => 'referral-partners')));
  }
}

Answer 3

I was able to accomplish this by using the module Subpathauto

Instead of using query parameters like this: ?article=referral-partners I just use them like this /my-arg-i-want and I am able to get them in my module using arg(2).