Remove "/php/" subdirectory from URL with .htaccess - .htaccess

Question

I've been trying to achieve the following rewrite/redirect on a website I'm building but I'm struggling and can't find the right answer online.
I want to rewrite
http://www.example.com/php/someFile.php
To:
example.com/someFile
I have managed to achieve most of the desired result with the following code in my .htaccess root file but I need help with removing the php subdirectory:
RewriteEngine on
# remove www from url
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^www.example.com [NC]
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://example.com/$1 [L,R=301,NC]
# redirect /file.php to /file
RewriteCond %{THE_REQUEST} \s/([^.]+)\.php [NC]
RewriteRule ^ /%1 [NE,L,R]
# internally map /file to /file.php
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME}.php -f
RewriteRule ^(.*)/?$ /$1.php [L]
Any help would be hugely appreciated.

Answer 1

Have it this way in your site root .htaccess:
RewriteEngine on
# remove www from url
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^www\.(example\.com)$ [NC]
RewriteRule ^ http://%{HTTP_HOST}%{REQUEST_URI} [L,R=301,NE]
# redirect /php/file.php to /file
RewriteCond %{THE_REQUEST} \s/+(?:php/)?([^.]+)\.php [NC]
RewriteRule ^ /%1 [NE,L,R=301]
# internally map /file to /php/file.php
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteCond %{DOCUMENT_ROOT}/php/$1.php -f
RewriteRule ^(.+?)/?$ php/$1.php [L]
Make sure to test after clearing your browser cache.

Answer 2

With your shown samples, could you please try following.
Please make sure to clear your browser cache before testing your URLs.
RewriteEngine on
# remove www from url
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^www\.example\.com [NC]
RewriteRule ^ http://example.com%{REQUEST_URI} [L,R=301,NE]
# redirect /file.php to /file
RewriteCond %{THE_REQUEST} \s/php/file\.php\s [NC]
RewriteRule ^ file [R=301]
RewriteRule ^ php/file.php [L]