This directive controls whether requests that contain trailing pathname information that follows an actual filename (or non-existent file in an existing directory) will be accepted or rejected. The trailing pathname information can be made available to scripts in the PATH_INFO environment variable.

For example, assume the location /test/ points to a directory that contains only the single file here.html . Then requests for /test/here.html/more and /test/nothere.html/more both collect /more as PATH_INFO .

The three possible arguments for the AcceptPathInfo directive are:

Off

A request will only be accepted if it maps to a literal path that exists. Therefore a request with trailing pathname information after the true filename such as /test/here.html/more in the above example will return a 404 NOT FOUND error.

On

A request will be accepted if a leading path component maps to a file that exists. The above example /test/here.html/more will be accepted if /test/here.html maps to a valid file.

Default

The treatment of requests with trailing pathname information is determined by the handler responsible for the request. The core handler for normal files defaults to rejecting PATH_INFO requests. Handlers that serve scripts, such as cgi-script and isapi-handler, generally accept PATH_INFO by default.

The primary purpose of the AcceptPathInfo directive is to allow you to override the handler's choice of accepting or rejecting PATH_INFO . This override is required, for example, when you use a filter, such as INCLUDES, to generate content based on PATH_INFO . The core handler would usually reject the request, so you can use the following configuration to enable such a script:

<Files "mypaths.shtml">
 Options +Includes
 SetOutputFilter INCLUDES
 AcceptPathInfo On
</Files>