use htaccess to prevent calling page except with RewriteRule

Question

Is it possible to use .htaccess to prevent a page from being served unless it is by a rewrite rule? for example I have clean URLS so a call to xyz.com/hi serves xyz.com/hi.php .

I would like to achieve if the called url = xyz.com/hi.php that the page opps.html gets served, but the normal xyz.com/hi still works.

thx Art

DirectoryIndex h1.php
Options +FollowSymLinks
RewriteEngine on
RewriteBase /

# stop calling page by ext
RewriteRule .*\.(php)$ opps.html [L]

# main start page
RewriteRule ^hi$ hi.php [L]

Answer 1

You need to add a condition to prevent php extensions from getting rewritten to oops.html . If you want to prevent actual requests for php pages, you can use the %{THE_REQUEST} variable inside a RewriteCond :

RewriteCond %{THE_REQUEST} ^[A-Z]{3,9}\ /.*\.php\ 
RewriteRule .*\.(php)$ opps.html [L]

This way, internally re-written URI's that end with .php won't get rewritten to oops.html .