using htaccess to remove .php from URL - php

Question

MY URL: http://localhost/test.php
I am using:
.htaccess:
RewriteEngine On
RewriteBase /
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteRule ^(.+)$ index.php?url=$1 [QSA,L]
PHP:
$url = $_GET['url'];
echo var_dump($url);
But all I get for $url is:NULL NULL NULL NULL NULL NULL

Answer 1

Edit: adjusted to handle both the redirect and the rewrite.
RewriteEngine On
RewriteBase /
# Redirect .php URLs to rewritten URLs
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteRule ^(.+)\.php$ $1 [L,QSA,R=301]
# Rewrite URLs for processing by router (index.php)
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteRule ^(.+)$ index.php?url=$1 [QSA,L,NC]
You should exclude the RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d condition, as it will attempt to access a directory if your URL matches it. Probably not desirable when doing url rewriting.
index.php
$url = isset($_GET['url']) ? $_GET['url'] : null;
var_dump($url);

Answer 2

I just wanted to leave this somewhere for future users. This removes both HTML and PHP extensions from URLS.
#example.com/page will display the contents of example.com/page.html
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME}.html -f
RewriteRule ^(.+)$ $1.html [L,QSA]
#301 from example.com/page.html to example.com/page
RewriteCond %{THE_REQUEST} ^[A-Z]{3,9}\ /.*\.html\ HTTP/
RewriteRule ^(.*)\.html$ /$1 [R=301,L]
## don't touch /forum URIs
RewriteRule ^forums/ - [L,NC]
## hide .php extension snippet
# To externally redirect /dir/foo.php to /dir/foo
RewriteCond %{THE_REQUEST} ^[A-Z]{3,}\s([^.]+)\.php [NC]
RewriteRule ^ %1 [R,L]
# To internally forward /dir/foo to /dir/foo.php
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME}.php -f
RewriteRule ^(.*?)/?$ $1.php [L]