Mod rewrite to remove subdirectory and file extension without breaking DirectoryIndex - apache

Question

I have all site pages in a subdirectory like this...
http://www.example.com/pages/myfile.php
I want the URL to look like this...
http://www.example.com/myfile
Where both the subdirectory called pages and the .php file extension are removed from the URL.
My latest (partial) attempt...
Options All -Indexes +FollowSymLinks
DirectoryIndex index.php
RewriteEngine On
RewriteBase /
RewriteCond %{DOCUMENT_ROOT}/pages%{REQUEST_URI}\.php -f [OR]
RewriteCond %{DOCUMENT_ROOT}/pages%{REQUEST_URI} -d
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ /pages/$1.php [NC,L]
However, this totally breaks DirectoryIndex. When I go to http://www.example.com/ or http://www.example.com/foo/, I get a 404 error instead of defaulting to index.php as defined by DirectoryIndex.
Apparently, it treats everything as a file name instead of recognizing the lack of a file name (directory) and attempting to use index.php.
I tried incorporating this solution into mine, it fixed the DirectoryIndex issue, but it broke everything else.
Is there a solution? Please include a detailed explanation within your answer so I can learn where/how I was going wrong.

Answer 1

Try this in root .htaccess:
Options All -Indexes +FollowSymLinks
DirectoryIndex index.php
RewriteEngine On
RewriteBase /
# add a trailing slash if pages/<uri> is a directory
RewriteCond %{DOCUMENT_ROOT}/pages/$1 -d
RewriteRule ^(.*?[^/])$ %{REQUEST_URI}/ [L,R=302]
RewriteRule ^/?$ pages/index.php [L]
# skip all files and directories from rewrite rules below
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} -d [OR]
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} -f
RewriteRule ^ - [L]
# if corresponding .php file exists in pages/ directory
RewriteCond %{DOCUMENT_ROOT}/pages/$1\.php -f
RewriteRule ^(.+?)/?$ pages/$1.php [L]
# route all requests to pages/
RewriteRule ^((?!pages/).*)$ pages/$1 [L,NC]