Question: ```
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} ^/new/
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ new.php?title=$1 [L,QSA]

```

im confused as to what this does....

what does the REQEUST\_URI do ?

Answer: 
If (`RewriteCond`) the requested URI starts with `/new/`, the script `new.php` is called (`RewriteRule`). It will be passed the requested URI as the `title` parameter, the query string (if any) will be preserved (the `QSA` flag), and no further rules will be processed after this one (the `L` flag).

i.e.

* `http://example.com/new/test.html` would call `http://example.com/new.php?title=/new/test.html`
* `http://example.com/new/test2.html?query=test3` would call `http://example.com/new.php?title=/new/test2.html&query=test3`
Basically it makes nice, pretty URLs.

It takes an URL like http:/www.example.org/new/foobar and in the background calls <http://www.example.org/new.php?title=foobar>.

REQUEST\_URI is everything after the hostname. In the above example that's /new/foobar.