The URL: header

Sometimes you may want to change a web page's URL itself. Although not really a header, Proxomitron will treat the name "URL:" as a special URL header filter. In this case the match will be the full URL (including the http:// part that the normal URL match ignores).

In the replacement text you'll probably want to use one of the redirect matching commands. There are two $JUMP(someurl) and $RDIR(someurl). Both will redirect the connection to a new (possibly different) URL.

$JUMP( ) works by sending a redirect back to your browser and letting it do the work. This is handy because it browser will know it's got a new URL and display it correctly in the location bar.

$RDIR( ) Is more sneaky and redirects the connection in Proxomitron without telling your browser. This is useful when you want your browser to think it going one place when, in reality, it's going somewhere else.

Here's an example of using the URL: header to redirect a URL. This filter will convert a hostname like "some-site" to "www.some-site.com". It just adds "www." and ".com" to any hostname without any periods (note: this filter would be enabled under the "out" column).

HTTP Header = URL: Dot-Communize dotless hostnames (out)
Match = http://([^./]+)\1/\2
Replace = $JUMP(http://www.\1.com/\2)

Here's the important features of this filter...

    The header name begins with "URL: ...." This tells it we want to filter the URL itself.
    The match checks for a hostname that lacks any dots or slashes ([^./]) and captures this into variable "\1". Variable "\2" then captures the rest of the path. (see the Matching Rules for all the gory details).
    Finally, in the replace, we take the parts of the original URL we captured and use them to cobble together a new URL for the $JUMP(...) command.