Cleanning urls with htaccess - php

Question

i am trying to use RewriteRules to get clean urls using my HTACCESS file.
here is what i have so far
RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteRule ^([^/]+)/$ $1.php
RewriteRule ^([^/]+)/([^/]+)/$ /$1/$2.php
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !(\.[a-zA-Z0-9]{1,5}|/)$
RewriteRule (.*)$ /$1/ [R=301,L]
The above code takes a url that looks like this company.com/about.php and turns it into company.com/about/ so all my links url are like this "/about/" i didnt add the .php because of the rewrite rule.
what i am trying to do now is add a rule that will clean my url when parameter is passed. for example
company.com/about/?profile=member_name i want it to look like company.com/about/member_name
i have tried the two rewrite code below but it doesn't work.
RewriteRule ^([a-zA-Z0-9]+)$ /our_work.php/ [L]
RewriteRule ^/our_work.php([^/\.]+)/?$ ?project=$1 [L]
please keep in mind that my file extension is already being striped from the url.
Please help
Thank you in advance

Answer 1

Apache provides documentation on the use of RewriteRule that you should read before proceeding.
In this particular case, you can rewrite /about/{member_name} to /about.php?profile={member_name} by implementing this rule:
RewriteRule ^about/([a-zA-Z0-9]+)(/)?$ about.php?profile=$1 [L]
The rule states: The requested URL must begin with about/ and be followed by letters and numbers (match #1) and may be proceeded by an additional ending forward slash (match #2); and it will be substitued with a URL about.php with profile query string's value as match #1. The L flag indicates that any rules that follow this rule should be ignored.
Attempting to "cascade" rules will not work with your current set of rules because the /about/{...} is not matched by the first rule.