<dt>file-system path</dt>
<dd>Designates the location on the file-system of the resource
- to be delivered to the client. Substitutions are only
- treated as a file-system path when the rule is configured in
- server (virtualhost) context and the first component of the
- path in the substitution exists in the file-system</dd>
+ to be delivered to the client. A substitution beginning with
+ <code>/</code> is treated as a file-system path only in
+ server or virtual host context, and only when the first
+ component of the path exists in the file-system. In
+ <glossary ref="perdirectory">per-directory context</glossary>,
+ this guessing does not occur.</dd>
<dt>URL-path</dt>
<dd>A <directive
module="core">DocumentRoot</directive>-relative path to the
- resource to be served. Note that <module>mod_rewrite</module>
- tries to guess whether you have specified a file-system path
- or a URL-path by checking to see if the first segment of the
- path exists at the root of the file-system. For example, if
- you specify a <em>Substitution</em> string of
- <code>/www/file.html</code>, then this will be treated as a
- URL-path <em>unless</em> a directory named <code>www</code>
- exists at the root of your file-system (or, in the case of
- per-directory rewrites, relative to
- your document root), in which case it will
- be treated as a file-system path. If you wish other
+ resource to be served. In server or virtual host context,
+ if the first segment of the path exists at the root of the
+ file-system, the substitution is treated as a file-system
+ path instead. For example, <code>/www/file.html</code> is
+ a URL-path unless a directory named <code>www</code> exists
+ at the root of the file-system. If you wish other
URL-mapping directives (such as <directive
module="mod_alias">Alias</directive>) to be applied to the
resulting URL-path, use the <code>[PT]</code> flag as