mod_rewrite, matching a specific pattern - .htaccess

Question

The title is quite ambiguous so I apologise.
The problem lies in the following code. I need to add actions after the keyword statement however I do not want the action to override the keyword when action is not present.
The input url with actions is http://websitenamehere/uk/en/meet-us/update
and without: http://websitenamehere/uk/en/meet-us
So I want the actions clause to be triggered only when what proceeds it is a string of 4 or more characters. This htaccess rule should not depend on the country or lang being set when making the comparison.
If I have missed anything please let me know and I will update the question. I know it should be fairly simple but at the moment I am just blundering through htaccess and leanring as I go.
#language
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteRule ^([a-z]{2})/([a-z]{2})(?:/(.*)|)$ /$1/$3?lang=$2 [NC,QSA,PT]
#country
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteRule ^([a-z]{2})(?:/(.*)|)$ /$2?country=$1 [NC,QSA,PT]
#keyword
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteRule ^([^/]+)/(.*)/$ /$2?keyword=$1 [NC,QSA,PT]
#actions
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME}\.php !-f
RewriteRule ^([^/]+)/(.*)$ /?action=$1 [NC,QSA,PT]
#withoutactions
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME}\.php !-f
RewriteRule ^([^/]+)/(.*)$ /$2?keyword=$1 [NC,QSA,PT]
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !(\.[^./]+)$
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteRule ^(.+)/$ /$1.php [NC,QSA,PT]

Answer 1

I figured this out today. Basically what is happening is the htaccess file when building a back reference goes through the rules more than once.
I did add a skip into the original keyword line but it would simply be ignored:
#keyword
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteRule ^([^/]+)/(.*)/$ /$2?keyword=$1 [NC,QSA,PT,S=1]
#withoutactions
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME}\.php !-f
RewriteRule ^([^/]+)/(.*)$ /$2?keyword=$1 [NC,QSA,PT]
#actions
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME}\.php !-f
RewriteRule ^([^/]+)/(.*)$ /?action=$1 [NC,QSA,PT]
When the htaccess ran the second time the S would no longer apply and it would then hit the withoutactions block. To circumvent this I simply checked if keyword already existed in the query string and if so to skip the rule:
#keyword
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteRule ^([^/]+)/(.*)/$ /$2?keyword=$1 [NC,QSA,PT,S=1]
#withoutactions
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME}\.php !-f
RewriteCond %{QUERY_STRING} !keyword
RewriteRule ^([^/]+)/(.*)$ /$2?keyword=$1 [NC,QSA,PT]
#actions
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME}\.php !-f
RewriteRule ^([^/]+)/(.*)$ /?action=$1 [NC,QSA,PT]
I hope this helps someone experiencing a similar problem with back references!