htacess rewrite rules conflict - apache

Question

I am having issues trying to set up a correct htaccess file.
What I basically want to do is to implement clean URL and hide the .php extension except for one file.
What I currently have set up is the following:
Options +FollowSymLinks
RewriteEngine On
RewriteRule ^recruit(.*)$ recruit.php?id=/$1 [QSA,L]
#RewriteRule ^(?!recruit)(.*)$ $1.php [NC,L]
The first rule will take anything after 'recruit' and pass it as a get variable in the url
www.example.com/recruitHI --> www.example.com/recruit.php?id=HI
What the other rule needs to do is to append .php to anything else other than anything that starts with recruit.
www.example.com/index --> will look for index.php
www.example.com/contact --> will look for contact.php
www.example.com/recruit --> Needs to be ignored because of the first rule
When I have the 2 rules on and start apache, I get an error saying my configuration is wrong. They both work individually though.

Answer 1

You can use:
Options +FollowSymLinks
RewriteEngine On
RewriteRule ^recruit(.*)$ recruit.php?id=/$1 [QSA,L]
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteCond %{DOCUMENT_ROOT}/$1\.php -f [NC]
RewriteRule ^(.+?)/?$ /$1.php [L]
2nd rule will add .php extension only for URIs that are not file or directories and that are already valid php files.

Answer 2

Try adding a condition to the second rule so that it won't blindly append a php to the end of the URI:
RewriteRule ^recruit(.*)$ recruit.php?id=/$1 [QSA,L]
RewriteCond %{DOCUMENT_ROOT}%{REQUEST_URI}\.php -f
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ $1.php [NC,L]

Answer 3

Specifying RewriteBase at the beginning. If everything is in the site root it would be
RewriteBase /
Otherwise all your Rules should begin with ^/
RewriteEngine On
RewriteBase /
RewriteRule ^recruit(.*)$ recruit.php?id=/$1 [QSA,L]
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ $1.php [NC,L]
Since your have the L The rules after recruit will only affect items that don't have it. But instead of having a script for every url possibility, you should look at using a single Front Controller.
RewriteEngine On
RewriteBase /
RewriteRule ^recruit(.*)$ recruit.php?id=/$1 [QSA,L]
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ index.php [NC,L]
Then you can use FallBack provider instead (newer in Apache)
RewriteEngine On
RewriteBase /
RewriteRule ^recruit(.*)$ recruit.php?id=/$1 [QSA,L]
FallbackResource /index.php