Status: Base
Source File:
mod_autoindex.c
Module Identifier:
autoindex_module
index.html. The DirectoryIndex
directive sets the name of this file. This is controlled by
mod_dir.mod_autoindex.Automatic index generation is enabled with using
Options +Indexes. See the Options directive for
more details.
If FancyIndexing is enabled, or the FancyIndexing keyword is present on the IndexOptions directive, the column headers are links that control the order of the display. If you select a header link, the listing will be regenerated, sorted by the values in that column. Selecting the same header repeatedly toggles between ascending and descending order.
Note that when the display is sorted by "Size", it's the actual size of the files that's used, not the displayed value - so a 1010-byte file will always be displayed before a 1011-byte file (if in ascending order) even though they both are shown as "1K".
See also: Options and DirectoryIndex.
The column sorting headers themselves are self-referencing hyperlinks that add the sort query options to reorder the directory listing. The query options are of the form X=Y, where X is one of N (file Name), M (file last Modified date), S (file Size), or D (file Description), and Y is one of A (Ascending) or D (Descending).
When options other than the file name are used as the sorting key, the secondary key is always the file name. (When the file name is used to sort by, there is no need of a secondary sort key, since file names are guaranteed to be unique, and so the sort order is unambiguous.)
Example:
If the URL http://your.server.name/foo/ produces a directory index, then the following URLs will produce different sort orders:
See IndexOrderDefault to set the default directory ordering.
Note also that when the directory listing is ordered in one direction (ascending or descending) by a particular column, the link at the top of that column then reverses, to allow sorting in the opposite direction by that same column.
This sets the alternate text to display for a file, instead
of an icon, for FancyIndexing.
File is a file extension, partial filename, wild-card
expression or full filename for files to describe.
String is enclosed in double quotes (").
This alternate text is displayed if the client is
image-incapable or has image loading disabled.
Examples:
AddAlt "PDF" *.pdf
AddAlt "Compressed" *.gz *.zip *.Z
This sets the alternate text to display for a file, instead
of an icon, for FancyIndexing.
MIME-encoding is a valid content-encoding, such as
x-compress. String is enclosed in double
quotes ("). This alternate text is displayed if
the client is image-incapable or has image loading
disabled.
Example:
AddAltByEncoding "gzip" x-gzip
This sets the alternate text to display for a file, instead
of an icon, for FancyIndexing.
MIME-type is a valid content-type, such as
text/html. String is enclosed in double
quotes ("). This alternate text is displayed if
the client is image-incapable or has image loading
disabled.
Example:
AddAltByType "TXT" text/plain
This sets the description to display for a file or directory, for IndexOptions FancyIndexing.
file|directory is a file extension, partial filename or
directory name, wild-card expression or full filename or directory name,
for files or directories to describe. String is enclosed in
double quotes ("). Example:
AddDescription "The planet Mars"
/web/pics/mars.gif
The description field is 23 bytes wide. 7 more bytes may be
added if the directory is covered by an
IndexOptions SuppressSize, and 19 bytes may
be added if IndexOptions SuppressLastModified
is in effect. The widest this column can be is therefore 49
bytes.
As of Apache 1.3.10, the DescriptionWidth IndexOptions keyword allows you to adjust this width to any arbitrary size.Caution: Descriptive text defined with AddDescription may contain HTML markup, such as tags and character entities. If the width of the description column should happen to truncate a tagged element (such as cutting off the end of a bolded phrase), the results may affect the rest of the directory listing.
This sets the icon to display next to a file ending in name for FancyIndexing. Icon is either a (%-escaped) relative URL to the icon, or of the format (alttext,url) where alttext is the text tag given for an icon for non-graphical browsers.
Name is either ^^DIRECTORY^^ for directories, ^^BLANKICON^^ for blank lines (to format the list correctly), a file extension, a wildcard expression, a partial filename or a complete filename. Examples:
AddIcon (IMG,/icons/image2.gif) .gif .jpg .png
AddIcon /icons/dir.gif ^^DIRECTORY^^
AddIcon /icons/backup.gif *~
AddIconByType should be used in
preference to AddIcon, when possible.
This sets the icon to display next to files with MIME-encoding for FancyIndexing. Icon is either a (%-escaped) relative URL to the icon, or of the format (alttext,url) where alttext is the text tag given for an icon for non-graphical browsers.
Mime-encoding is a wildcard expression matching required the content-encoding. Examples:
AddIconByEncoding /icons/compressed.gif
x-compress
This sets the icon to display next to files of type MIME-type for FancyIndexing. Icon is either a (%-escaped) relative URL to the icon, or of the format (alttext,url) where alttext is the text tag given for an icon for non-graphical browsers.
Mime-type is a wildcard expression matching required the mime types. Examples:
AddIconByType (IMG,/icons/image3.gif) image/*
The DefaultIcon directive sets the icon to display for files when no specific icon is known, for FancyIndexing. Url is a (%-escaped) relative URL to the icon. Examples:
DefaultIcon /icon/unknown.xbm
The FancyIndexing directive sets the FancyIndexing option for a directory. The IndexOptions directive should be used in preference.
Note that in versions of Apache prior to 1.3.2, the FancyIndexing and IndexOptions directives will override each other. You should use IndexOptions FancyIndexing in preference to the standalone FancyIndexing directive. As of Apache 1.3.2, a standalone FancyIndexing directive is combined with any IndexOptions directive already specified for the current scope.
The HeaderName directive sets the name of the file that will be inserted at the top of the index listing. Filename is the name of the file to include.
Apache 1.3.6 and earlier: The module first attempts to include filename.htmlas an HTML document, otherwise it will try to include filename as plain text. Filename is treated as a filesystem path relative to the directory being indexed. In no case is SSI processing done. Example:when indexing the directoryHeaderName HEADER/web, the server will first look for the HTML file/web/HEADER.htmland include it if found, otherwise it will include the plain text file/web/HEADER, if it exists.
Apache versions after 1.3.6: Filename is treated as a URI path relative to the one used to access the directory being indexed. Note that this means that if Filemame starts with a slash, it will be taken to be relative to the DocumentRoot.
Filename must resolve to a document with a major content type of "text" (e.g., text/html, text/plain, etc.). This means that filename may refer to a CGI script if the script's actual file type (as opposed to its output) is marked as text/html such as with a directive like:
AddType text/html .cgiContent negotiation will be performed if the MultiViews option is enabled. If filename resolves to a static text/html document (not a CGI script) and the Includes option is enabled, the file will be processed for server-side includes (see the mod_include documentation).
If the file specified by HeaderName contains the beginnings of an HTML document (<HTML>, <HEAD>, etc) then you will probably want to set IndexOptions +SuppressHTMLPreamble, so that these tags are not repeated.
See also ReadmeName.
The IndexIgnore directive adds to the list of files to hide
when listing a directory. File is a file extension,
partial filename, wildcard expression or full filename for
files to ignore. Multiple IndexIgnore directives add to the
list, rather than replacing the list of ignored files. By
default, the list contains `.'. Example:
IndexIgnore README .htaccess *~
The IndexOptions directive specifies the behavior of the directory indexing. Option can be one of
Note that in versions of Apache prior to 1.3.2, the FancyIndexing and IndexOptions directives will override each other. You should use IndexOptions FancyIndexing in preference to the standalone FancyIndexing directive. As of Apache 1.3.2, a standalone FancyIndexing directive is combined with any IndexOptions directive already specified for the current scope.
There are some noticeable differences in the behavior of this directive in recent (post-1.3.0) versions of Apache.
The default is that no options are enabled. If multiple IndexOptions could apply to a directory, then the most specific one is taken complete; the options are not merged. For example:
<Directory /web/docs>
IndexOptions FancyIndexing
</Directory>
<Directory /web/docs/spec>
IndexOptions ScanHTMLTitles
</Directory>
then only ScanHTMLTitles will be set for the
/web/docs/spec directory.
Apache 1.3.3 introduced some significant changes in the handling of IndexOptions directives. In particular,
IndexOptions FancyIndexing ScanHTMLTitles.Whenever a '+' or '-' prefixed keyword is encountered, it is applied to the current IndexOptions settings (which may have been inherited from an upper-level directory). However, whenever an unprefixed keyword is processed, it clears all inherited options and any incremental settings encountered so far. Consider the following example:
IndexOptions +ScanHTMLTitles -IconsAreLinks
FancyIndexing
IndexOptions +SuppressSize
The net effect is equivalent to
IndexOptions FancyIndexing +SuppressSize,
because the unprefixed FancyIndexing discarded
the incremental keywords before it, but allowed them to
start accumulating again afterward.
To unconditionally set the IndexOptions for
a particular directory, clearing the inherited settings,
specify keywords without either '+' or '-' prefixes.
The IndexOrderDefault directive is used in combination with the FancyIndexing index option. By default, fancyindexed directory listings are displayed in ascending order by filename; the IndexOrderDefault allows you to change this initial display order.
IndexOrderDefault takes two arguments. The first must be either Ascending or Descending, indicating the direction of the sort. The second argument must be one of the keywords Name, Date, Size, or Description, and identifies the primary key. The secondary key is always the ascending filename.
You can force a directory listing to only be displayed in a particular order by combining this directive with the SuppressColumnSorting index option; this will prevent the client from requesting the directory listing in a different order.
The ReadmeName directive sets the name of the file that will be appended to the end of the index listing. Filename is the name of the file to include, and is taken to be relative to the location being indexed.
The filename argument is treated as a stub filename in Apache 1.3.6 and earlier, and as a relative URI in later versions. Details of how it is handled may be found under the description of the HeaderName directive, which uses the same mechanism and changed at the same time as ReadmeName.
See also HeaderName.