How to remove .html extension from the URL using .htaccess (but it’s challenging)

Question

Here’s the file structure.

- index.html
- x (A FOLDER)
- im_in_x.html
- me_too.html
- y (FOLDER)
- y_no.html
- y_yes.html
- some-page.html
- x.html
- y.html
- Styles (FOLDER)
- images (FOLDER)

So what I’m trying to do is remove the .html extension from the url using .htaccess file (and yes I have access to that file).

The challenge is that I have the same folder name as the file name.

Answer 1

assuming you're using mod_rewrite, accessing folder or file will be quite different: access to folder ends with a slash, while access to file do not.

so you need a regex url rewrite rule such as:

^(.*)(?<!\/)$

and as replacement pattern:

$1.html

let me know if that solve your problem, because I've never wrote url rewrite rules, i only have looking how that could be done ;P

Answer 2

no, use my patterns inside Calvin prefix/postfix:

RewriteRule ^(.*)(?<!\/)$ $1.html [L,R=301]

where there's 4 parts separated by space:
+ 'RewriteRule' keyword
+ regex to select urls to be rewritten
+ the replacement pattern ($1 refer to first capture group)
+ postfix (doesn't remember for what is L, but seems important, and R=301 redirection seems optional, but sounds like to be good practice?)

Answer 3

visph that one disnt work.

“This page isn’t working

www.MYDOMAIN.com redirected you too many times.
Try clearing your cookies.
ERR_TOO_MANY_REDIRECTS”

Here’s what i used:
RewriteEngine On
RewriteRule ^(.*)(?<!\/)$ $1.html [L,R=301]

Answer 4

as I was saying in my first post, I never had used url rewriting, so I don't know exactly how it should be done...

you could try to remove the escape anti-slash (I think we need it in javascript because we enclose regex literal inside slashes, so we need a way to differenciate the closing one from those used in the regex)...

you could also try to remove ",R=301", and at least do your own research on how to write url rewriting rules ^^

and you finally should try all combinations ;P

Answer 5

visph I will probably just add an underscore on the folder name:
(_x)... example.com/x points to the file name. example.com/_x to the folder.

Hey, thanks for your time. really appriciate it.

I will do some more research about this, & let you know if I figure it our somehow.

Answer 6

RewriteRule ^(.*)\.html$ /$1 [L,R=301]

Answer 7

Calviղ didn't your solution do the converse that what the OP expect?

url: "domain.tld/x"
should return "x.html" file? (as if url was rewrite to "domain.tld/x.html"?)

while your solution will change "domain.tld/x.html" to "domain.tld/x" (and then will return folder instead of expected file?)

Answer 8

visph
So would the full code be:

RewriteEngine On
^(.*)(?<!\/)$1.html