CodeIgniter routing problem

[MichSm]

I'm trying to build a short uri service with CI just so i can learn CI faster anyway .. i got stuck at the routing i hid the index.php then added the following route \[code\]$route['([A-z0-9]{4})'] = "/forward/redirect/$1";\[/code\]but it just shows my default controlleri also tried with htaccess \[code\]RewriteBase /RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-fRewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-dRewriteRule ^([A-z0-9]{4})$ /forward/redirect/$1 [NC]\[/code\]it gives error for not having any passed data any help is appreciated.Cheers