Can I URL rewrite without redirecting on Apache2?

We have a rewrite rule that works fine, but the reason why we're rewriting is because the target URL is not so tidy.

foo.com/bar -> foo.com/some/really/long/address

What I would like to do is keep the foo.com/bar URL in the browser, but show the foo.com/some/really/long/address page. Is this possible?

From serverfault nbolton

• mod_rewrite it what you need.

  This is quite easy and its a powerfull tool.

  I suggest to read this -> http://httpd.apache.org/docs/2.0/misc/rewriteguide.html

  And example :

  this estarts de rewriteengine, then applies some conditions and if they are true then applies the rewrite itself. its like a while/case codeblock.

  The most helpful part is the log .;)

      RewriteEngine on
  RewriteLogLevel 0
  RewriteLog "/var/www/rewrite.log"
  
  <Directory /var/www>
  
      Options -ExecCGI -Indexes
      AllowOverride none
      Order allow,deny
      allow from all
      #SetHandler none
  
      RewriteEngine On
      RewriteBase /
      RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
      RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} -d
      RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !=/favicon.ico
      RewriteRule ^(\w+.\w+)/(es|ca|en)/$ index.php?user=$1&lang=$2 [L]
  
      RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
      RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} -d
      RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !=/favicon.ico
      RewriteRule ^(\w+.\w+)/$ index.php?user=$1&lang= [L]
  
      RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
      RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
      RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !=/favicon.ico
      RewriteRule ^(\w+.\w+)/(\w+)?(/(.*))?$ index.php?user=$1&lang=$2$4 [L,QSA]
  

  also, you can look at mod_proxy, it will do the trick but it's not the 'good way' in my opinion.

  hope it helps.

  From marc.riera