RewriteRule htaccess to always remove trailing slash even directory

Question

The target is to combine several rules:

• never have a trailing slash in the URI
• internally rewrite to the index.php (domain.tld/somedir/index.php) when calling domain.tld/somedir
• remove file extensions , check if + '.php' exists and eventually internally rewrite to it

This is to be done in '.htaccess' as this is my only accessible .

My attempt so far

# check if *.php exists
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME}\.php -f
RewriteRule ^(.*[^/])/?$ $1.php [L, QSA]

# do not allow trailing slash
RewriteRule (.*)/ $1 [L, R=301]

The difficulty here is that the query 'domain.tld/somedir' normally calls the directory's index.php after having been redirected to 'domain.tld/somedir/'. However, I would like the index.php to be internally called (no 301) directly when querying 'domain.tld/somedir'.

Answer 1

You can use this code:

DirectoryIndex index.php
RewriteEngine On

# remove trailing slash
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteCond %{THE_REQUEST} \s(.+?)/+[?\s]
RewriteRule ^(.+?)/$ /$1 [R=301,L]

# To internally forward /dir/file to /dir/file.php
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteCond %{DOCUMENT_ROOT}/$1.php -f [NC]
RewriteRule ^(.+?)/?$ /$1.php [L]

Answer 2

There is a separate setting in apache called DirectorySlash that can be enabled/disabled. You can read more at httpd.apache.org/docs/2.2/mod/mod_dir.html#directoryslash but be sure to read the part about why this is done right below where it says "some good reasons". Also note the security issue.