Consolidating .htaccess and fix bug - apache

Question

I should start off by saying that I am no expert with .htaccess and that everything I have done with it comes from tutorials I followed.
I have edited the stock standard .htaccess file that ships with Laravel to include lines that
remove public from the URL
force https
redirect requests for www.mysite.com to mysite.com
The issue that I have currently, is that when I visit the route mysite.com/sitemap or www.mysite.com/sitemap it generates a new sitemap and then redirects to mysite.com/index.php effectively getting rid of the pretty-urls that Laravel is meant to fix.
This is my .htaccess file in my public directory:
<IfModule mod_rewrite.c>
<IfModule mod_negotiation.c>
Options -MultiViews
</IfModule>
RewriteEngine On
# Redirect Trailing Slashes If Not A Folder...
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteRule ^(.*)/$ /$1 [L,R=301]
# Handle Front Controller...
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteRule ^ index.php [L]
# Redirect www.mysite.com to mysite.com
RewriteBase /
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^www\.(.*)$ [NC]
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ https://%1/$1 [R=301,L]
# Force SSL
RewriteCond %{HTTPS} !=on
RewriteRule ^ https://%{HTTP_HOST}%{REQUEST_URI} [L,R=301]
</IfModule>
This is the .htaccess file in my root directory
# Remove public
RewriteEngine On
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ public/$1 [L]
And this is my routes.php handling the sitemap route
Route::get('sitemap', function(){
// create new sitemap object
$sitemap = App::make("sitemap");
// add items to the sitemap (url, date, priority, freq)
$sitemap->add(URL::to('/'), '2015-11-14T20:10:00+02:00', '1.0', 'monthly');
$sitemap->add(URL::to('getcv'), '2015-11-14T12:30:00+02:00', '0.9', 'monthly');
// generate your sitemap (format, filename)
$sitemap->store('xml', 'sitemap');
// this will generate file sitemap.xml to your public folder
return redirect('/');
});
My question is, how can I make it so that mysite.com/sitemap or www.mysite.com still follows all of the rules in my .htaccess whilst redirect to mysite.com after following the sitemap route rather than going to mysite.com/index.php?

Answer 1

You need to reorder your rules in /public/.htaccess:
<IfModule mod_rewrite.c>
<IfModule mod_negotiation.c>
Options -MultiViews
</IfModule>
RewriteEngine On
# Redirect www.mysite.com to mysite.com
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^www\.(.+)$ [NC]
RewriteRule ^ https://%1%{REQUEST_URI} [R=301,L]
# Force SSL
RewriteCond %{HTTPS} !=on
RewriteRule ^ https://%{HTTP_HOST}%{REQUEST_URI} [L,R=301]
# Redirect Trailing Slashes If Not A Folder...
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteRule ^(.*)/$ /$1 [L,R=301]
# Handle Front Controller...
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteRule ^ index.php [L]
</IfModule>
Make sure to clear your browser cache when you test this change.