htaccess manipulation to merge two different RewriteRule blocks

Question

Trying to merge two different .htaccess blocks.

1. for hiding *.php extension:

RewriteRule ^([^\.]+)$ $1.php [NC,L]

2. for redirecting to specific web is string matched with MySQL row:

RewriteRule ^([a-zA-Z0-9_-]+)$ friendly_url.php?friendly_url=$1

If one works, other gets blocked, for example this way works friendly_url, but it doesn't hide PHP extension:

RewriteEngine On
RewriteRule ^([a-zA-Z0-9_-]+)$ friendly_url.php?friendly_url=$1
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteRule ^([^\.]+)$ $1.php [NC,L]

My php code contains simple query:

$sql = "SELECT * FROM url WHERE friendly_url ='$friendly_url'";
$result = mysqli_query($connection, $sql);

if (!mysqli_num_rows($result) > 0) {
    echo "page does not exist";
    die();
} else {
    echo "page exist";
}

My end goal is to check if file.php exist, if so redirect to example.com/file, then check if in mysql friendly_url exist, if so - redirect to example.com/$friendly_url else echo "page does not exist";

Both .htaccess blocks works, but only if one is deleted.

Answer 1

RewriteRule ^([a-zA-Z0-9_-]+)$ friendly_url.php?friendly_url=$1
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteRule ^([^\.]+)$ $1.php [NC,L]

Reverse the two rules and instead of checking that the request does not map to a file in the second rule, check that the corresponding .php exists before rewriting.

For example, try the following instead:

# Rewrite to ".php" file if it exists
RewriteCond %{DOCUMENT_ROOT}/$1.php -f
RewriteRule ^([^.]+)$ $1.php [L]

# Otherwise root requests to "friendly.php" instead
RewriteRule ^([\w-]+)$ friendly_url.php?friendly_url=$1 [L]

The \w shorthand character class is the same as [a-zA-Z0-9_].

There is no need to backslash-escape literal dots in the regex character class.

---

My end goal is to check if file.php exist, if so redirect to example.com/file, then check if in mysql friendly_url exist, if so - redirect to example.com/$friendly_url else echo "page does not exist";

This is basically what the above rules now do. However, it's not possible to check if the MySQL friendly_url exists in .htaccess. Any URL that matches the pattern ^([\w-]+)$ (that doesn't exist as a .php file) will be rewritten to friendly_url.php. Only URLs that do not match that pattern and do not exist will then drop through to a 404.