Remove trailing slash after directory with htaccess - apache

Question

I want to remove / when I want to get access to the index file in a subdirectory folder. For example: www.example.com/test/dashboard/ to www.example.com/test/dashboard.
I tried this:
RewriteEngine On
# Remove "/" to "/dashboard"
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !index.php
RewriteCond %{QUERY_STRING} !^$
RewriteCond %{QUERY_STRING} ^(.*)$
RewriteRule (.*) $1%1/ [L]
It will not remove the / from the subdirectory.
Can you please show me an example of how I can remove the / with .htaccess when I want to get access to my subdirectory?

Answer 1

# Remove "/" to "/dashboard"
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !index.php
RewriteCond %{QUERY_STRING} !^$
RewriteCond %{QUERY_STRING} ^(.*)$
RewriteRule (.*) $1%1/ [L]
This doesn't "remove" anything. In fact, it will append a trailing slash to the end of the URL-path and query string, which seems a bit random?
However, you can't simply remove the trailing slash that occurs after a physical directory in the URL-path, since mod_dir will try to append it with a 301 redirect in order to "fix" the URL.
You can prevent mod_dir from appending the trailing slash with the DirectorySlash Off directive. However, you then need to manually append the trailing slash to the directory with an internal rewrite in order to correctly serve the "index file" (ie. the DirectoryIndex document).
I'm assuming you are linking to the directory without a trailing slash in your internal links.
Try the following instead:
# Disable directory listings (mod_autoindex)
Options -Indexes
# Prevent mod_dir appending trailing slash to directories
DirectorySlash Off
RewriteEngine On
# Rewrite the URL to append a trailing slash to directories (internally)
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} -d
RewriteRule (.*[^/])$ $1/ [L]
A request for /dashboard (no trailing slash) that maps to a physical directory will be internally rewritten to /dashboard/, which will allow the "index file" to be served (by mod_dir also).
For security reasons, you need to ensure that directory listings (mod_autoindex) are disabled, otherwise, directory listings could potentially be generated for directories even when they contain a directory index document. See the security warning in the Apache docs under the DirectorySlash directive.
You need to ensure that your browser cache is cleared before testing since the 301 (permanent) redirect by mod_dir (to append the trailing slash) will have certainly been cached by the browser.
Remove the trailing slash (optional)
You could implement a canonical redirect to actually "remove" the trailing slash from the URL, should there be any requests from third parties (or search engines) that include the trailing slash. (It should already be removed on all your internal links, so this is not required to make your site "work", however, it could be required for SEO to avoid potential duplicate content.)
I'm assuming you don't want the trailing slash on any URL.
You should add the following "redirect" before the rewrite above, immediately after the RewriteEngine directive.
# Remove the trailing slash, should it appear on any 3rd party requests
RewriteCond %{ENV:REDIRECT_STATUS} ^$
RewriteRule (.+)/$ /$1 [R=301,L]
The check against the REDIRECT_STATUS environment variable is to ensure we do not redirect the already written request (that appends the trailing slash) by the later rewrite, during the second pass of the rewrite engine. Alternatively, you could use the END flag (Apache 2.4) on the later rewrite.