title: How does htaccess recursion work?
body: <p>I'm working in a hosted situation where I have a primary webroot located in <code>~/www</code>. I have several subdomains hosted in <code>~/www/__subdomains</code>. In the primary webroot, I have a <code>.htaccess</code> file that does a bit of minor rewriting. In two of my subdomains, I have similar <code>.htaccess</code> files and these subdomains respond properly.</p>
  
  <p>In 2 other, newly created subdomains, I have <code>.htaccess</code> files that are empty save for an <code>AddHandler</code> directive. What I'm finding is that the root <code>.htaccess</code> file's existence/content affects these 2 subdomains. They throw a 500 error. As soon as I rename that one, the broken subdomains work.</p>
  
  <p>This, of course, breaks the other sites so I can't just move this off, but it violates my understanding of how <code>.htaccess</code> recursion works. I thought that as long as there was a <code>.htaccess</code> file in a subdirectory, those in ancestor directories would never get executed.</p>
  
  <p>Clearly, I'm wrong about that so I'm hoping someone can educate me and help me get this fixed.</p>
  
  <p>Thanks. </p>