if you would like to get a nice url scheme with php/apache and and want to handle all requests in a central php script there's a simple solution/hack:

create a .htaccess in your "basedir" where you've got your main script (in this example index.php) containing some lines like:

"ErrorDocument 404 /index.php"

inside index.php you can now do

<?php
    $virtual_path = substr(
        $_SERVER['REQUEST_URI'],
        strlen( dirname( $_SERVER['PHP_SELF'] ) ) + 1
    );
    if( ($pos = strpos( $virtual_path, '?' )) !== false ) {
        parse_str( substr( $virtual_path, $pos + 1 ), $_GET );
        $_REQUEST = array_merge( $_REQUEST, $_GET );
        $virtual_path = substr( $virtual_path, 0, $pos );
    }

    // some code checking for a valid location, etc...
    header( 'HTTP/1.1 200 OK' );
    header( 'Content-Type: text/plain' );

    echo $virtual_path."\n\n";
    print_r( $_REQUEST );
?>

// guido 'lenix' boehm