Question

I’m edditing my htaccess to internally redirects
just about any URL to a php page handler:

RewriteRule ^images\/ - [L,NS]
RewriteRule ^docs\/ - [L,NS]
RewriteRule ^([A-Za-z0-9\_\-]+)\/?$ pages/pagehandler.php?page=$1 [L,QSA,NS]

this works fine accept that directories that are enteres in the address
bar with no trailing slash for some reason get duplicate query strings,
and for some reason the address bar of the browser changes
for example, if I type the URL:

localhost/movies

if there’s a directory called movies in the site root
than the address changes to:

localhost/movies/?page=movies

I guess this is some collision with mod_dir but I don’t know
how to overcome it, if I use:

<IfModule mod_dir.c>
   DirectorySlash Off
</IfModule>

Than it works, but I don’t want this, I think for some reason the url
is rewritten than mod dir changes it and than it is rewritten again thus
making duplicate query strings,

Any Ideas?

EDIT: I Add a relevant part of the Rewritelog, this is all from one request:

strip per-dir prefix: /opt/lampp/htdocs/movies -> movies
applying pattern '^images\/' to uri 'movies'
strip per-dir prefix: /opt/lampp/htdocs/movies -> movies
applying pattern '^docs\/' to uri 'movies'
strip per-dir prefix: /opt/lampp/htdocs/movies -> movies
applying pattern '^pages\/' to uri 'movies'
strip per-dir prefix: /opt/lampp/htdocs/movies -> movies
applying pattern '^([A-Za-z0-9\_\-]+)\/?$' to uri 'movies'
rewrite 'movies' -> 'pages/pagehandler.php?page=movies'
split uri=pages/pagehandler.php?page=movies -> uri=pages/pagehandler.php, args=page=movies
add per-dir prefix: pages/pagehandler.php -> /opt/lampp/htdocs/pages/pagehandler.php
trying to replace prefix /opt/lampp/htdocs/ with /
strip matching prefix: /opt/lampp/htdocs/pages/pagehandler.php -> pages/pagehandler.php
add subst prefix: pages/pagehandler.php -> /pages/pagehandler.php
internal redirect with /pages/pagehandler.php [INTERNAL REDIRECT]
strip per-dir prefix: /opt/lampp/htdocs/movies/ -> movies/
applying pattern '^images\/' to uri 'movies/'
strip per-dir prefix: /opt/lampp/htdocs/movies/ -> movies/
applying pattern '^docs\/' to uri 'movies/'
strip per-dir prefix: /opt/lampp/htdocs/movies/ -> movies/
applying pattern '^pages\/' to uri 'movies/'
strip per-dir prefix: /opt/lampp/htdocs/movies/ -> movies/
applying pattern '^([A-Za-z0-9\_\-]+)\/?$' to uri 'movies/'
rewrite 'movies/' -> 'pages/pagehandler.php?page=movies'
split uri=pages/pagehandler.php?page=movies -> uri=pages/pagehandler.php, args=page=movies&page=movies
add per-dir prefix: pages/pagehandler.php -> /opt/lampp/htdocs/pages/pagehandler.php
trying to replace prefix /opt/lampp/htdocs/ with /
strip matching prefix: /opt/lampp/htdocs/pages/pagehandler.php -> pages/pagehandler.php
add subst prefix: pages/pagehandler.php -> /pages/pagehandler.php
internal redirect with /pages/pagehandler.php [INTERNAL REDIRECT]

Also the relevant part from the access log:

"GET /movies HTTP/1.1" 301
"GET /movies/?page=movies HTTP/1.1" 200

Answer 1

For anyone having this problem, what I did ultimately in disable the Directory Slash:

<IfModule mod_dir.c>
   DirectorySlash Off
</IfModule>

And I used a RewriteRule to 301 Redirect all directory requests than do not end with a /

I guess this is some sort of collision between mod_rewrite and mod_dir
as I primarily thought