<DirectoryMatch>
Syntax: <DirectoryMatch regex> ... </DirectoryMatch>
Context: server config, virtual host
Status: Core.
Compatibility: Available in Apache 1.3 and later
<DirectoryMatch> and </DirectoryMatch> are used to enclose a group of directives which will apply only to the named directory and sub-directories of that directory, the same as <Directory>. However, it takes as an argument a regular expression. For example:

   <DirectoryMatch "^/www/.*/[0-9]{3}">

would match directories in /www/ that consisted of three numbers.

See Also: <Directory> for a description of how regular expressions are mixed in with normal <Directory>s.
See also: How Directory, Location and Files sections work for an explanation of how these different sections are combined when a request is received


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DocumentRoot directive
Syntax: DocumentRoot directory-filename
Default: DocumentRoot /usr/local/apache/htdocs
Context: server config, virtual host
Status: core
This directive sets the directory from which httpd will serve files. Unless matched by a directive like Alias, the server appends the path from the requested URL to the document root to make the path to the document. Example:

DocumentRoot /usr/web
then an access to http://www.my.host.com/index.html refers to /usr/web/index.html.
There appears to be a bug in mod_dir which causes problems when the DocumentRoot has a trailing slash (i.e., "DocumentRoot /usr/web/") so please avoid that.



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ErrorDocument directive
Syntax: ErrorDocument error-code document
Context: server config, virtual host, directory, .htaccess
Status: core
Override: FileInfo
Compatibility: The directory and .htaccess contexts are only available in Apache 1.1 and later.
In the event of a problem or error, Apache can be configured to do one of four things,

output a simple hardcoded error message
output a customized message
redirect to a local URL to handle the problem/error
redirect to an external URL to handle the problem/error
The first option is the default, while options 2-4 are configured using the ErrorDocument directive, which is followed by the HTTP response code and a message or URL.

Messages in this context begin with a single quote ("), which does not form part of the message itself. Apache will sometimes offer additional information regarding the problem/error.

URLs can begin with a slash (/) for local URLs, or be a full URL which the client can resolve. Examples:

ErrorDocument 500 http://foo.example.com/cgi-bin/tester
ErrorDocument 404 /cgi-bin/bad_urls.pl
ErrorDocument 401 /subscription_info.html
ErrorDocument 403 "Sorry can't allow you access today
Note that when you specify an ErrorDocument that points to a remote URL (ie. anything with a method such as "http" in front of it) Apache will send a redirect to the client to tell it where to find the document, even if the document ends up being on the same server.. This has several implications, the most important being that if you use an "ErrorDocument 401" directive then it must refer to a local document. This results from the nature of the HTTP basic authentication scheme.

See Also: documentation of customizable responses.



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ErrorLog directive
Syntax: ErrorLog filename|syslog[:facility]
Default: ErrorLog logs/error_log (Unix)
Default: ErrorLog logs/error.log (Windows and OS/2)
Context: server config, virtual host