Rewrite htaccess so it doesn't need to repeat itself - apache

Question

I have one big htaccess file that does all the redirects for a site. Here is what I do for each directory:
RewriteRule ^CAKE_MIX/.php$ CAKE_MIX/index.php [R,L]
RewriteRule ^CAKE_MIX$ CAKE_MIX/ [R,L]
RewriteRule CAKE_MIX/faqs.php$ /faqs/faqs.php?cat=CAKE_MIX [QSA]
RewriteRule CAKE_MIX/index.php$ /overview/overview.php?cat=CAKE_MIX [QSA,L]
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} /CAKE_MIX/*
RewriteRule . /faqs/faqs.php?cat=CAKE_MIX&question=%{REQUEST_URI}
RewriteRule ^COOKIE_DOUGH/.php$ COOKIE_DOUGH/index.php [R,L]
RewriteRule ^COOKIE_DOUGH$ COOKIE_DOUGH/ [R,L]
RewriteRule COOKIE_DOUGH/faqs.php$ /faqs/faqs.php?cat=COOKIE_DOUGH [QSA]
RewriteRule COOKIE_DOUGH/index.php$ /overview/overview.php?cat=COOKIE_DOUGH [QSA,L]
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} /COOKIE_DOUGH/*
RewriteRule . /faqs/faqs.php?cat=COOKIE_DOUGH&question=%{REQUEST_URI}
And I do this for 18 different directories. How would I rewrite the htaccess to say something like "for any of the following directories: COOKIE_DOUGH, CAKE_MIX,ICE_CREAM, follow these rules?" and then the rules could be like:
RewriteRule ^DIRECTORY/.php$ DIRECTORY/index.php [R,L]
And would only have to be written once? Is that possible?

Answer 1

You can use regex alternation:
RewriteRule ^(CAKE_MIX|COOKIE_DOUGH|ICE_CREAM)/\.php$ $1/index.php [R,L]
RewriteRule ^(CAKE_MIX|COOKIE_DOUGH|ICE_CREAM)$ $1/ [R,L]
RewriteRule (CAKE_MIX|COOKIE_DOUGH|ICE_CREAM)/faqs\.php$ /faqs/faqs.php?cat=$1 [QSA]
RewriteRule (CAKE_MIX|COOKIE_DOUGH|ICE_CREAM)/index\.php$ /overview/overview.php?cat=$1 [QSA,L]
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} /(CAKE_MIX|COOKIE_DOUGH|ICE_CREAM)/
RewriteRule . /faqs/faqs.php?cat=%1&question=%{REQUEST_URI}