If you need to test if an Apache server is running the mod_rewrite module, don’t waste your time building some elaborate system or doing it manually. Learn from my mistake and do it the simple way with this PHP code:

<?php 
if (in_array('mod_rewrite', apache_get_modules())) { 
    // Apache has Mod Rewrite 
} else {
    // Apache DOES NOT have Mod Rewrite 
}

Thanks Andrew! Too bad I didn’t know about apache_get_modules() until after I had built something far more complex!