Absolute URL in 100s of files rewrite - html

Question

I have created a dump from WayBack Machine so that a client can view his older site in order to create content plan. I loaded the backup to /~xxxxxxxx/ but as all the css and js in 100s of files are coded as follows:
<link href="/skins/FixedSize/styleSheets/style.css"
This results in 404 because the /~xxxxxx/ is ignored.
I have tried the following but no luck.
RewriteEngine on
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteRule .? /~xxxxxxxx/ [R=301,L]
I need a way to achieve this without modifying 470 HTML files.

Answer 1

This probably is what you tried to express:
RewriteEngine on
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteRule ^/?(.*)$ /~xxxxxxxx/$1 [END,QSA]
However you should be aware that this might be in conflict with other content you publish on that http host. There probably is a reason why you created that folder in the first place instead of using a hosts DOCUMENT_ROOT which would have prevented the current issue.
Which leads to an alternate suggestion: why don't you simply use a separate http host, so another "subdomain" as it is sometimes called?
Anyway, if you want to give above implementation a try, then please also note these additional hints:
In case you receive an internal server error (http status 500) using the rule above then chances are that you operate a very old version of the apache http server. You will see a definite hint to an unsupported [END] flag in your http servers error log file in that case. You can either try to upgrade or use the older [L] flag, it probably will work the same in this situation, though that depends a bit on your setup.
This implementation will work likewise in the http servers host configuration or inside a dynamic configuration file (".htaccess" file). Obviously the rewriting module needs to be loaded inside the http server and enabled in the http host. In case you use a dynamic configuration file you need to take care that it's interpretation is enabled at all in the host configuration and that it is located in the host's DOCUMENT_ROOT folder.
And a general remark: you should always prefer to place such rules in the http servers host configuration instead of using dynamic configuration files (".htaccess"). Those dynamic configuration files add complexity, are often a cause of unexpected behavior, hard to debug and they really slow down the http server. They are only provided as a last option for situations where you do not have access to the real http servers host configuration (read: really cheap service providers) or for applications insisting on writing their own rules (which is an obvious security nightmare).