Apache ModRewrite Working in vhost but not .htaccess - apache

Question

I have the following mod rewrites:
RewriteEngine On
# rest api rewrites
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} /api/v [NC]
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ /index.php/$1 [L,QSA]
# main application rewrite
RewriteCond %{DOCUMENT_ROOT}%{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{DOCUMENT_ROOT}%{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteRule ^/[a-zA-Z0-9\-\_/]+?$ /index.html [L,QSA]
When I put these into my vhost config, everything works as excepted however when I put this into my .htaccess file, the first rewrite does an infinite loop (the log show an INTERNAL REWRITE) and the second rewrite doesn't work at all.
Why would these rewrites would in the vhost but not my .htaccess file?

Answer 1

The first rule loops because your target matches the regex, so once it rewrites the first time and the rules loop, the ^(.*)$ matches the URI that you've just rewritten to (/index.php/etc...`), so it causes an infinite loop (or loops as many times as the internal redirect limit is configured to). You need to add a condition to prevent the looping:
# rest api rewrites
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !^/index\.php
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} /api/v [NC]
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ /index.php/$1 [L,QSA]
The second rule doesn't get applied at all because the URI being put through rules in an htaccess file has the leading slash stripped off (because htaccess is essentially like a <Directory> in vhost/server config), so you need to at least make that leading slash optional:
# main application rewrite
RewriteCond %{DOCUMENT_ROOT}%{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{DOCUMENT_ROOT}%{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteRule ^/?[a-zA-Z0-9\-\_/]+?$ /index.html [L,QSA]