.htaccess extensionless pages, 404 when extension is included - apache

Question

I'm in the process of cleaning my page's URLs by removing their file extensions, and the web is quick to offer the following .htaccess code:
RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME}.php -f
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ /$1.php
It works, but one can still access files by adding .php at the end like before. I don't want this! Idealy I want every visited page ending with .php to be perceived as what's typed just without the .php part. Would this be achieveable?
To sum up:
www.page.com/example.php displays 404
www.page.com/example displays example.php
Thanks in advance.

Answer 1

You're probably not still looking for an answer here, but just in case someone stumbles across this, here's how you do that:
First, do an external redirect:
## hide .php extension
## To externally redirect /dir/foo.php to /dir/foo
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteCond %{THE_REQUEST} ^[A-Z]{3,}s([^.]+).php [NC]
RewriteRule ^ %1 [R,L,NC]
Then, do a internal redirect:
## To internally forward /dir/foo to /dir/foo.php
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteRule ^(.*?)/([a-zA-Z0-9_-]+)/([0-9]+)$ /new/$1.php?ID=$3 [L]
That'll get you there! If it doesn't work, make sure these are at the top of your htaccess file:
RewriteEngine On
RewriteOptions inherit
Options +FollowSymlinks
Options -Multiviews
That's it! I explain the coding on my blog: http://kimjoyfox.com/writing-seo-friendly-urls-using-htaccess/