remove filename and extension name and only show folder name - php

Question

how can I show folder name instead of file name?
For example,
www.example.com/home/index.php -> www.example.com/home
I know when I browse www.example.com/home I will get the result but that is not what I want because it will add a / behind the folder name (e.g www.example.com/home/).
What I want is without the / behind the folder and when user browse www.example.com/home/index.php the page will redirect the user to page not found. The purpose I do this is to hide the language I used and make the link more readable and memorable.
I found something like rewrite the rules in .htaccess file but I am new in php so I don't how to make it. Anyone can give me suggestion or provides some tutorial about this.
Thanks.

Answer 1

To remove the slash, you must first disable DirectorySlash
DirectorySlash Off
DirectoryIndex disabled
Direct access to PHP files can be answered with a R=404 status code
RewriteCond %{ENV:REDIRECT_STATUS} ^$
RewriteRule \.php$ - [R=404,L]
And then, you can rewrite requests pointing to a directory and containing an index.php
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME}/index.php -f
RewriteRule ^.*$ /$0/index.php [L]
This RewriteCond looks, if the requested URL is a directory and if there is an index.php in this directory. If this is the case, then the index.php is executed.
Putting all together
DirectorySlash Off
DirectoryIndex disabled
RewriteEngine on
# prevent direct access to PHP files
RewriteCond %{ENV:REDIRECT_STATUS} ^$
RewriteRule \.php$ - [R=404,L]
# rewrite requests for a directory to index.php
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME}/index.php -f
RewriteRule ^.*$ /$0/index.php [L]

Answer 2

Htaccess doesn't have anything common with PHP. Htaccess is Apache's configuration file, so you need to play with htaccess to achieve that what you want. On the other hand your solution will be really dirty. Learn about MVC and FrontController to make your structure cleaner.