Magento – Magento remove “default” store code from urls

I didn't become happy using Add Store Code to URLs. The main reason was that we couldn't have several store views using the same language (see my question). Besides that I didn't like I have to use a bad store view code just because of the URL.

I did a small test using the frequently recommended "create a subfolder and create symlinks" tip and it may work. Please check if you like it.

• Create a subfolder /ca/
• Inside the subfolder create symbolic links to
  • ../app
  • ../errors
  • ../includes
  • ../index.php
  • ../js
  • ../lib
  • ../media
  • ../skin
  • ../var
  • (add other directories if you want/need to)

• edit your vHost config for /ca/ (or copy .htaccess to /ca/ and edit it) to

  • Set the rewrite base:

    RewriteBase /ca/

  • Initialise the correct store view based on the URL. There are many ways to do it, one may be:

    RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} ^/ca/.* [NC,OR]
    RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} ^/ca$ [NC]
    RewriteRule .* - [E=MAGE_RUN_CODE:ca]
    RewriteCond %{ENV:REDIRECT_MAGE_RUN_CODE} (.+)
    RewriteRule .* - [E=MAGE_RUN_CODE:%1,E=MAGE_RUN_TYPE:store]`
    

It worked for me:

• Default store view
  • http://test02.magentoshops.vm/ (links from my VM, you won't see anything)
  • http://test02.magentoshops.vm/test-category.html
  • http://test02.magentoshops.vm/test-category/test-product.html
• Canada store view
  • http://test02.magentoshops.vm/ca/
  • http://test02.magentoshops.vm/ca/test-category.html
  • http://test02.magentoshops.vm/ca/test-category/test-product.html

Creating folders and symlinks isn't fun but at least you don't have to edit core files.

You can check if the store codes are included in the URL like this:

$flag = Mage::getStoreConfigFlag('web/url/use_store');

$flag will be true or false depending on the store codes in URL are enabled or not.