htaccess rewrite doesn't work as expected - php

Question

I have an index.php file, with the following lines in it:
if(isset($_GET["page"]))
{
$page=$_GET["page"];
setcookie("page",$page,time()[phone]);
}
else if(isset($_COOKIE["page"]))
{
$page=$_COOKIE["page"];
}
else
{
$page="stock";
}
It's a simple page handler script, if you don't have the variables in your URL, the last viewed page will be opened.
Now I want to rewrite the URLs with a .htaccess file, and I have really strange results.
My webpage was hosted on a server like www.host.com/directory/index.php
Basically, I want the URLs look like www.host.com/directory/$page
The .htacces file was placed to the "directory", and have the following lines in it:
RewriteEngine on
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ index.php?page=$1 [NC]
My problem:
If the system can find a file based on the $page variable, it will be included. If the file doesn't exists, an error page will be displayed. Now, on the error page I echoed out the $page variable, and it is "index.php".
What is wrong with my code, and how can I fix it? I've never written any .htaccess before...
Thanks for your answers!

Answer 1

Your rule is looping, you need to add some conditions to prevent this from happening:
RewriteEngine on
RewriteCond $1 !^index\.php
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ index.php?page=$1 [NC]
or
RewriteEngine on
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ index.php?page=$1 [NC]