Use mod_rewrite to remove .php extension and clean GET urls concurrently

Question

This is what I've tried till now:

RewriteEngine On

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

RewriteCond %{QUERY_STRING} ^id=([0-9]{1})$
RewriteRule ^article\.php$ /article/%1 [L]

Basically, the first set of rules converts the URLs from something.php to something.

The second set of rules is supposed to replace anything that has article.php?id=NUMBER in it into /article/NUMBER.

Apache reports:

AH00124: Request exceeded the limit of 10 internal redirects due to probable 
configuration error. Use 'LimitInternalRecursion' to increase the limit if necessary.

Answer 1

The second set of rules is supposed to replace anything that has article.php?id=NUMBER in it into /article/NUMBER.

I believe you have rules reversed.

Try this code instead:

RewriteEngine On
RewriteBase /mellori/

# external redirect from actual URL to pretty one
RewriteCond %{THE_REQUEST} /article\.php\?id=([^\s&]+) [NC]
RewriteRule ^ article/%1? [R=302,L]

# internally rewrites /article/123 to article.php?id=123
RewriteRule ^article/([0-9]+)$ article.php?id=$1 [L,NC,QSA]

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