Question

I’ve read some .htaccess tutorials but can’t figure out this easy task.
I have a site that typically routes every request to index.php.
But I have one specific file (upload_photo.php) that I want it to simply execute without rerouting to index.php. Below is my htacess file with an entry for upload_photo.php that screws up everything. What am I doing wrong?

# AddType x-mapp-php5 .php
# AddHandler x-mapp-php5 .php

RewriteEngine on
Options +FollowSymlinks
#Options +SymLinksIfOwnerMatch

RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteRule upload_photo.php upload_photo.php [L]
RewriteRule . index.php [L]

ErrorDocument 404 /page-unavailable/

<files ~ "\.tpl$">
order deny,allow
allow from none
deny from all
</files>

Answer 1

The original rewrite you had:

RewriteEngine on
Options +FollowSymlinks
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteRule . index.php [L]

does something like this:

Configuration:

RewriteEngine on
Options +FollowSymlinks

if the path requested is not a file

RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f

if the path requested is not a directory

RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d

then rewrite to index.php

RewriteRule . index.php [L]

So, if your file upload_photo.php really exist in same directory where index.php is, you don’t need to change the original rewrite.
The correct file .php will be referenced automatically, because the rewrite to index.php will be executed only if the requested resource (file or directory) does not exist.

So there is no need to add this:

RewriteRule upload_photo.php upload_photo.php [L]