[llll]

I have the following htaccess code:

Options +FollowSymLinks -MultiViews
# Turn mod_rewrite on
RewriteEngine On
RewriteRule ^phpinformation.php /info.php [R,NC,L]
RewriteRule ^phpinformation /info.php [R,NC,L]
RewriteBase /
## hide .php extension # To externally redirect /dir/foo.php to /dir/foo
RewriteCond %{THE_REQUEST} ^[A-Z]{3,}\s([^.]+)\.php [NC]
RewriteRule ^ %1 [R,L,NC]
## To internally redirect /dir/foo to /dir/foo.php
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME}.php -f
RewriteRule ^ %{REQUEST_URI}.php [L]

The code allows the existing URL http: //server_address/info.php to display without extensions, i.e. http: // server_address / info.
It also allows a non-existent URL, http: // server_address / phpinformation, to be redirected to http: // server_address / info.
Also, a non-existent address http: //server_address/phpinformation.php is redirected to an existing http: // server_address / info.

Note: # is a comment mark.

Can you explain in this code what each line does (line by line)?

[requinix]

RewriteRule ^phpinformation.php /info.php [R,NC,L]

Redirect phpinformation.php to /info.php.

RewriteRule ^phpinformation /info.php [R,NC,L]

Redirect phpinformation to /info.php.

RewriteBase /

Remove a / prefix from URLs when matching.

RewriteCond %{THE_REQUEST} ^[A-Z]{3,}\s([^.]+)\.php [NC]

The next RewriteRule only happens if THE_REQUEST (eg, "GET /foo.php HTTP/1.1") matches that pattern. As in the request ends with .php. This is a silly way of doing that requirement but it works.

RewriteRule ^ %1 [R,L,NC]

Redirect everything to whatever the value of the first capturing group from the previous RewriteConds was.

RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME}.php -f

The next RewriteRule only happens if the requested file does not exist as a file.

RewriteRule ^ %{REQUEST_URI}.php [L]

Silently rewrite everything to whatever it was plus a .php extension.

[llll]

@requinix,

Instead of the following:

RewriteCond %{THE_REQUEST} ^[A-Z]{3,}\s([^.]+)\.php [NC]

The next RewriteRule only happens if THE_REQUEST (eg, "GET /foo.php HTTP/1.1") matches that pattern. As in the request ends with .php. This is a silly way of doing that requirement but it works.

What are alternative ways (without regular expression)?

[requinix]

Without regular expressions and mod_rewrite? You don't. I'm not talking about removing regular expressions. I mean that using a RewriteCond to match the request is silly because RewriteRule can already do that.

[llll]

@requinix,

Could you show alternative instructions, instead of

RewriteCond %{THE_REQUEST} ^[A-Z]{3,}\s([^.]+)\.php [NC]

using different rules if necessary?

[llll]

... also, could you explain what that regular expression does?

[requinix]

On second thought, using just a RewriteRule makes the scheme more complex and fragile. I wouldn't do it.

I still don't like THE_REQUEST though. It's for people who don't know that REQUEST_URI exists.

[llll]

@requinix,

Could you also explain the use of flags at each line. For example, I don't understand the use of [NC] flag.
In the documentation it says that it makes uppercase letters equal as lowercase. However, this doesn't works. It depends if the OS has case-sensitive file system.

So, practically, there is no use of [NC] flag without extra configuration, right? Am I wrong?

[requinix]

I don't know what documentation you're reading, but the one I'm reading says NC "makes the pattern comparison case-insensitive". That's a far cry from saying lowercase and uppercase are the same thing.

[llll]

@requinix,

Could you explain how is it different? What is the actual use of [NC] flag?

[requinix]

It makes the pattern comparison case-insensitive. Do you not understand what that means? RewriteCond and RewriteRule both have a pattern, they compare that pattern against something (depending), and when they compare in a case-insensitive way the uppercase and lowercase versions of a letter will be considered to match each other.