php/apache url cleanup

i'm working on a little web-based app and i'm gettting annoyed with the mile-long urls that are generated from passing information from script to script. i'm trying to clean this up by eliminating the miles of ?foo=foo&bar=bar and replacing it with something sane and clearly readable.

it's software for cataloging books so instead of having browse.php?art=Publisher i'm trying to change things to be www.host.com/browse/publisher. i've gotten it to work as long as i leave it as www.host.com/browse.php/publisher, but i want to get rid of the .php's completely.

i tried adding a .htaccess file to the directories as such:

RewriteEngine On
RewriteRule book book.php
RewriteRule browse browse.php

it got the job done and i can properly view host.com/browse, but this prevents the scripts from getting variables from the url. my intention is to get it to where i can do www.host.com/book/213 and it'll display the details for book number 213 in my database. as i said, my only fix thus far is to type www.host.com/browse.php/213. i know it's possible, i've seen done on plenty of sites so if the explanation is a bit long-winded a link to a page explaining it or some proof-of-concept code would be greatly appreciated.

thanks,
~clay

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Received on Wed Dec 29 10:47:51 2004