If you do find the answer, let me know. I've been looking for a while 
too, and unsuccesful.  Thanks for that pointer to that weird workaround 
to variables in the right-hand side, I didn't know about that and it 
could be useful.

mod_rewrite totally drives me to mythical sendmail levels of insanity on 
a regular basis. (I've never actually had to maintain sendmail myself, 
so I can only metaphorize.)

Godmar Back wrote:
> On Wed, Jul 1, 2009 at 10:38 AM, Walker, David <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>
>   
>>> They can create .htaccess files, but don't always
>>> have control of the main Apache httpd.conf or the
>>> root directory.
>>>       
>> Just to be clear, I didn't mean just the root directory itself.  If
>> .htacess lives within a sub-directory of the Apache root, then you _don't_
>> need RewriteBase.
>>
>> RewriteBase is only necessary when you're in a virtual directory, which is
>> physically located outside of Apache's DocumentRoot path.
>>
>> Correct me if I'm wrong.
>>
>>     
>
> You are correct!  If I omit the RewriteBase, it still works in this case.
>
> Let's have some more of that sendmail koolaid and up the challenge.
>
> How can I write an .htaccess that's path-independent if I like to exclude
> certain files in that directory, such as index.html?  So far, I've been
> doing:
>
> RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !^/services/tictoclookup/standalone/index.html
>
> To avoid running my script for index.html.  How would I do that?  (Hint: the
> use of SERVER variables on the right-hand side in the CondPattern of a
> RewriteCond is not allowed, but some trickery may be possible, according to
> http://www.issociate.de/board/post/495372/Server-Variables_in_CondPattern_of_RewriteCond_directive.html)
>
>  - Godmar
>
>