mod_rewrite: Rewrite URL to point to cgi script, but keep rewrite hidden

Question

I'm trying to rewrite the URL

http://domain.com/whatever 

To:

http://domain.com/cgi-bin/script.cgi

My .htaccess file looks like this:

RewriteEngine On
RewriteRule /whatever /cgi-bin/script.cgi [NC]

This doesn't work and gives me a 404 error. However, this works:

RewriteEngine On
RewriteRule /whatever http://domain.com/cgi-bin/script.cgi [NC]

但在这种情况下，URL 更改对用户来说是可见的。我究竟做错了什么？

Answer 1

添加[PT]标志修复它：

RewriteEngine On
RewriteRule /whatever /cgi-bin/script.cgi [NC,PT]

现在，如果有人可以解释为什么需要这样做以及实际发生了什么，我将非常感激。