Using mod_perl to rewrite URLs

Anyone that's looked at web logs will quickly see the usefulness of this little mod_perl script. It catches all requests for favicon.ico and rewrites the request to point to a valid location. No more logs full of 404 errors.

This example is adapted from the mod_perl Developer's Cookbook, chapter 12.

  file:Cookbook/Favicon.pm
  ------------------------
  package Cookbook::Favicon;
  
  use Apache::Constants qw(DECLINED);
  use strict;
  
  sub handler {
      my $r = shift;
  
      $r->uri('/images/favicon.ico')
          if $r->uri =~ m!/favicon\.ico$!
  
      return DECLINED;
  }
  1;

And configure in httpd.conf with:

    PerlModule Cookbook::Favicon
    PerlTransHandler Cookbook::Favicon

Although this example could easily be accomplished with Apache's mod_rewrite module, this example demonstrates how easy it is to rewrite URLs programatically, using Perl.