How to hide PHP file extension without using .htaccess

Question

How am I able to hide a .php extension in an URL address, so that this address,

http://www.thesite.com/somefile.php

would look like

Answer 1

Although you specifically said no, using the .htaccess file would remove the .php extension from all PHP files in all subdirectories in a site. I think that is what you are going for.

<IfModule mod_rewrite.c>
  RewriteEngine on
  RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
  RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME}\.php -f
  RewriteRule ^(.*)$ $1.php
</IfModule>

Putting that into the .htaccess file will remove all the .php file extensions. Or you could put it directly into the webserver's configuration files.

Answer 2

You can achieve this with URL rewriting. If you don't want to use .htaccess, you can write the rule in your host configuration file.