Problem removing .php extension with mod_rewrite

Hey all,

I want the URL http://domain.com/myfile to access http://domain.com/myfile.php

I figured the following rewriteRule would do it:
RewriteRule ^([^/]+)/?$ $1.php

In my head it should grab everything up to the slash, with a slash being optional, and get that grabbed stuff with a .php ending, however, I get a 500 error.

So, I tried the following 2 possiblities:


RewriteRule ^([^/]+)$ $1.php # type domain.com/filename into the browser
RewriteRule ^([^/]+)/$ $1.php # type domain.com/filename/ into the browser


Oddly enough, the first of these two options results in a 500 error, and the second works fine.

Does anyone know what I'm doing wrong here?

Thanks.

Its greedy greedy. I've never used it for something so simplistic before.
Here's the problem. Damn, I just lost it. Oh well.
Here's how to fix it, be more specific on the characters you allow. The last one works since you're forcing it to end with a / on it. This example states that a / can exist, but may not, so you don't need to write a second rule for it.
Change you're characters with whatever you want to allow (mines just a word character, so a-z0-9 and _)

RewriteRule ^([\w]+)/?$ $1.php

Greedy am I!

The word character is a great idea.

I also made it work like this, (it's a bit more involved, and has a few more features):

RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteRule ^(.+)/$ help/$1 [R=301,L]

# If the requested URI does not contain a period in the final path-part
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !(\.[^./]+)$
# and if it does not exist as a directory
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
# and if it does not exist as a file
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
# then add .html to get the actual filename
RewriteRule ^([^/]*) help/$1.php [L]
## Externally redirect clients directly requesting .php page URIs to extensionless URIs


# If client request header contains php file extension
RewriteCond %{THE_REQUEST} ^[A-Z]{3,9}\ /([^.]+\.)+php\ HTTP
# externally redirect to extensionless URI
RewriteRule ^(.+)\.php$ help/$1 [R=301,L]