Clean URL with mod_rewrite including sub directory inside domain - apache

Question

I am trying to use mod-rewrite in .htaccess for implementing clean/pretty URLs.
RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteRule ^([^/]+)/?$ details.php?id=$1 [L,QSA]
RewriteEngine On turns the engine on.
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f does not rewrite anything if the
request filename exists, and is a file.
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d does not rewrite anything if the
request filename exists, and is a directory.
RewriteRule ^([^/]+)/?$ details.php?id=$1 [L,QSA] This is the actual
rewrite rule. It takes anything after the domain name (anything
other than forward slashes), and rewrites it to details.php, passing
it as the id parameter.
RewriteRule ^([^/]+)/?$ details.php?id=$1 [L,QSA] is working when request for http://www.domain.com/texas
This is well and good. What I need is that my request URL looks like this:
http://www.domain.com/location/texas
and details.php has the below code
<?php
$id = $_GET["id"];
echo "new id is ".$id;
?>
Problem: I couldn't write a valid .htaccess RewriteRule to identify this request http://www.domain.com/location/texas.
Please help.
What all I tried?
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteRule ^location/?$ details.php?id=$1 [L,QSA] - not working
RewriteRule ^location/[a-z][-a-z0-9]*?$ details.php?id=$1 [L,QSA] - working, but id is displayed blank.

Answer 1

You can just tweak your existing rule by making starting location/ optional:
RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteRule ^(?:location/)?([^/]+)/?$ details.php?id=$1 [NC,L,QSA]