I talked to someone once who did this by creating a dynamic 404 error page (assuming for whatever reason you can't use mod_rewrite).  If you are familiar with an MVC design pattern, you could make your 404 error page your main application controller that directs the traffic.  The problem with this (besides being a major hack) is your web logs will be all screwy.

But as others have said, there are plenty of ways to do this.  mod_rewrite++

Andrew

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Code for Libraries [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of
> Emily Lynema
> Sent: Thursday, July 03, 2008 12:22 AM
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: [CODE4LIB] implementing cool uris in java
>
> I'm looking around for tools to implement cool uris in java. I've been
> studying the restlet framework tonight, and while it sounds cool, I
> think it would also require a complete re-write of an application that
> is currently based on the Servlet API. And, of course, I'm working
> under
> a time crunch.
>
> Is there anything out there to assist me in working with cool uris
> besides just using regular expressions when parsing URLs?
>
> For example, I'd like to create URLs like:
>
> http://catalog.lib.ncsu.edu/record/123456
>
> instead of:
>
> http://catalog.lib.ncsu.edu/record?id=1234565
>
> -emily
> --
> Emily Lynema
> Systems Librarian for Digital Projects
> Information Technology, NCSU Libraries
> 919-513-8031
> [log in to unmask]