Apache conf serving static files with question mark in filename

If you have files on your filesystem with ‘?’ question mark in them, for example:

index.html?q=somestring

This can occur when you have site-ripped a PHP based website with for instance wget or other tools. If you access an url with ‘?’ in it, the webserver will try to serve the string after the question mark as a query string. This will not work, since there is no PHP, and result will be that you always get the index.html file, not the file named: “index.html?q=somestring”

This can be solved with an Apache rewritecond/rule configuration. Apache can be configured so that the ‘?’ is interpreted as part of the filename and not serving a query string.

Here is an example:
Directory "/var/www/html/path/to/files/";
AddType text/css .css?J
RewriteEngine On
RewriteBase /sites
RewriteCond %{QUERY_STRING} !^$
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ $1\%3F%{QUERY_STRING}? [L]