title: htaccess - How are htaccess files applied to subdirectories?
body: <p>I have a rewrite rule:</p>
  
  <pre><code>RewriteRule ^Catalog/Custom_Pages/([^\.]+)\.html$  http://www.domain.com/New/Catalog/Custom_Pages/Custom_Pages_Main.php?cp=$1 [R]
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>The directory structure is domain.com/New/Catalog/</p>
  
  <p>If I omit 'Catalog' at the front of the RewriteRule then the URL is not rewritten. The htaccess file is in the 'New' directory. So does the htaccess for 'New' only apply to its subdirectories or should it apply to all the subdirectories such that 'Catalog' could be omitted? Is this probably a server setting?</p>