Apache RewriteRule: matching beyond "?"

[JockMullin]

I am a complete newb to Apache and I am trying to use mod_rewrite to redirect requests to different servers depending on the incoming URL.

Basically I need to refer info requests for specific suppliers' products to their sites. This works fine where the match expression is in the basic url, for example:

RewriteRule SupplierA\.Product suppliera.com/Product.html [L]

works just fine when the incoming request is mydomain.com/SupplierA.Product.html

However, when the match expression is in a parameter, for example if the request is for a search:
mydomain.com/?Search=SupplierA.Product
then the match does not seem to work no matter what I do, unless I remove the ?

Two questions:
1. Is there any way around this - i.e. to match against the entire request string including $ and beyond. Is mod_rewrite inappropriate here? How else can it be done?
2. Is there a limit to the number of RewriteRules that can be in effect?

Any guidance would be appreciated.
Jock

 

[JockMullin]

OK, found the answer:

Use RewriteCond before RewriteRule, wherein you can match against %{QUERY_STRING}, which contains everything after the ?. So you do the query matching in the RewriteCond statements(s) preceding the RewriteRule, which is where you match the URL.

Jock