Remove file extensions from urls

Question

I've never used mod_rewrite but i want to remove all file extensions from my urls for a website. What is the rule that i would need to do this?

I've tried this, but that gives me an internal error every time i click a link on my website

RewriteRule ^(.*)$ $1.php [L]

Answer 1

What you want to do is first check if the file exists, this will prevent the infinite loop that is causing the 500 error. It will also make other non-php file requests work (ie: images, css, etc).

RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME}.php -f
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ $1.php [L]

Answer 2

Options +MultiViews is probably a better option for this. With that option enabled, Apache will intelligently rewrite the extension.