Simple mod rewrite with PHP?

[MrApples]

I can figure out how to do it with Apache, but I recently learned that URL rewriting can be done with PHP as well.

How would I make it so these URL's are on in the same with PHP?

http://www.domain.com/area/location.html

http://www.domain.com/index.php?area=location

Where as area and location are the variables.

[MoT3rror]

This goes in your .htaccess file

RewriteRule ^area/([^/]*).html$ /index.php?area=$1

[MrApples]

That's nice of you, thank you, I was looking for a PHP version though. I kind of don't want to turn 'RewriteEngine' on for something small. Unless I'm being stupid?

If I am being stupid, would that work as if both versions were input, the same location would come up, and the url would say the simpler one either way?

Also, would this make area a variable as well?

RewriteRule ^([^/]*)/([^/]*).html$ /index.php?$1=$2

[cfitzarl]

You could also do:

RewriteRule ^area/(.*).html$ index.php?area=$1