Force removal of index.php with .htaccess - .htaccess

Question

I'm currently using the following to rewrite http://www.site.com/index.php/test/ to also work directly with http://www.site.com/test/, but I would like to not only allow the second version, I would like to FORCE the second version. If a user goes to http://www.site.com/index.php/test/ it should immediately reroute them to http://www.site.com/test/. index.php should never appear in a url. Stipulation: this should only apply to the first index.php. If I have a title like http://www.site.com/index.php/2011/06/08/remove-index.php-from-urls/ it should leave the second index.php, as it is part of the URL.
Current rule that allows but does not force:
#Remove index.php
RewriteCond $1 !^(index.php|images|css|js|robots.txt)
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ /index.php/$1 [L]
Thanks.

Answer 1

As you wrote, if a user goes to http://www.site.com/index.php/test/ this rule will imediately reroute him to http://www.site.com/test/
RedirectMatch 301 /index.php/(.*)/$ /$1
I'm not sure if that is what you need as your current rewrite rule is opposite to mine.

Answer 2

First (and wrong) answer - see below
You can accomplish a redirection with these directives (in this order):
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} ^index.php
RewriteRule ^index\.php/(.+)$ /$1 [R,L]
RewriteCond $1 !^(index.php|images|css|js|robots.txt)
RewriteRule ^(.*?)$ /index.php/$1 [L]
That will first redirect all the requests that begin with index.php to the corresponding shortened url, then silently serve index.php/etc with the second rule.
EDIT - Please read on!
In fact, the solution above generates an infinite redirection loop, because Apache takes the following actions (let's say we request /index.php/abc):
first RewriteCond matches
Apache redirects [R], that is, generates a new HTTP request, to /abc
/abc fails first RewriteCond
/abc matches second RewriteCond
Apache does not redirect, but rewrites this URI (so it makes an "hidden" request), to /index.php/abc . We are again at point 1, that's a loop.
Please note...
By using the [L] (last rule) flag, we can only tell Apache not to process more rewrite rules, but only if the current rule matches. Since a new HTTP request is made, there is no information about how may redirection we have been through yet. So, any time one of the two matches, and in any case it generates a new request (=>loop)
Using the [C] (chain rules) flag is kinda pointless because it makes Apache process a rule only if the previous rule matches, while the two rules we have are mutually excluding.
Using the [NS] (not if subrequest) flag on rule #1 is again not an option because it aìsimply does not apply to our case (see Apache RewriteRule docs about it)
Setting env variables is not an option (alas), since a new request is made at pt 2, thus destroying all environment variables we set.
An alternative solution can be to rewrite e.g. /abc , to /index.php?path=abc. That is done by these rules (please, delete your RedirectMatch similar rule before adding these):
RedirectMatch ^/index\.php(/.*) $1
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !^/(index.php|images|css|js|robots.txt|favicon.ico)
RewriteRule ^(.+) /index.php?path=$1 [L,QSA]
I don't know the internals of CodeIgniter's scripts, but as most of the MVC scripts, it will read $_REQUEST['PATH_INFO'] to understand which page is requested. You could slightly modify the code that recognizes the page like this (I assumed that the page path is stored in the $page var):
$page = $_REQUEST['PATH_INFO'];
if(isset($_GET['path']) && strlen($_GET['path'])) $page = $_GET['path']; // Add this line
This won't break the previous code and accomplish what you asked for.