Getting 301 instead of 404 when adding trailing slash to URL

Question

I've been working for hours in this and can't find information about it. Well yes, there is information, but I can only find separate solutions that don't work put toguether.

I'm trying to start from this:

RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} \.(php)$
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !(.*)/$
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://www.example.com/$1/ [L,R=301]

The code works, I get the trailing slash. BUT if I put a non existing filename it returns a 301. For example:

http://www.example.com/thisfiledoesnotexist.php

The first header response is a 301, and it's logical, because it tries to return:

http://www.example.com/thisfiledoesnotexist.php/

And then it returns the 404, but this way it takes two requests to return a 404.

I supose that many people found this problem before, I believe it's a common issue, but I haven't found the solution to it.

Answer 1

Finally I got the solution!!! It's not simple, and I don't really understand how it works. I tried Adam Dimech's code, that can be found in this page.

The code is:

RewriteEngine on

RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME}\.php -f
RewriteRule ^([^/]+)/$ $1.php

RewriteCond %{THE_REQUEST} ^[A-Z]+\ /([^/]+/)*[^.]+\.php(\?[^\ ]*)?\ HTTP/
RewriteRule ^(([^/]+/)*[^.]+)\.php$ http://www.example.com/yourdirectory/$1 [R=301,L]

RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !(\.[a-zA-Z0-9]{1,5}|/)$
RewriteRule (.*)$ http://www.example.com/yourdirectory/$1/ [R=301,L]

This code has to be put in each directory where we will be working with. If you use relative paths you have to use

The code worked fantastic. Now I can take off the php extension and force the trailing slash. Hope it's useful for more people!

Answer 2

Try using the -f check. It checks whether the request is for an existing file:

RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} -f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} \.(php)$
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !(.*)/$
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://www.example.com/$1/ [L,R=301]