.htaccess rule skipping $2 not matched uri segment from the url

Question

I want below request and response

• 1
  Request: https://example.com/de/
  Expected: https://example.com/de

• 2
  Request: https://example.com/de/fr/path
  Expected: https://example.com/de/path

• 3 #default english
  https://example.com/def/frq/path
  https://example.com/en

RewriteEngine On

#Check for files that do not contain the language string
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !^/[a-z]{2}/.*
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ https://%{HTTP_HOST}/en [R=301,L]

#Capture the language string and present it as the variable
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} ^/([a-z]{2})/
RewriteRule ^([a-z]{2})/(.*)$ https://%{HTTP_HOST}/%1/%2 [R=301,L]

Tried with some changes in %2 segment uri but no help so far, anyone did this earlier? Let me know if more description required

Answer 1

With your shown samples/attempts, please try following. Please make sure to clear your browser cache before testing your URLs.

Keep these Rules at the top of your .htaccess Rules file. I am assuming that you have rules present to serve your newly rewritten urls in your htaccess rules file.

RewriteEngine ON
##1st kind of urls, to remove / from end of it.
RewriteRule ^([a-zA-Z]{2})/?$ $1 [R=301,L]

##Handle https://example.com/de/fr/en/de/en TO https://example.com/de urls.
RewriteRule ^([a-zA-Z]{2})/(?:[a-zA-Z]{2}/)*(?:[a-zA-Z]{2})/?$ $1 [R=301,L]

##Handle https://example.com/de/fr/path TO https://example.com/de/path urls.
RewriteRule ^([a-zA-Z]{2})/(?:[a-zA-Z]{2}/)*(.*)/?$ $1/$2 [R=301,L]

##handle https://example.com/def/frq/path TO https://example.com/en urls here.
RewriteRule ^([a-zA-Z]{3,})/.*$ en [R=301,L]

Online demo for 3rd rule regex

Online demo for 2nd rule regex

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EDIT: Or to check rules to start with a 2 letter specific language try following then, I have used en,us,de,fr languages, you can add more to it as per your need too.

RewriteEngine ON
##1st kind of urls, to remove / from end of it.
RewriteRule ^(en|us|de|fr)/?$ $1 [NC,R=301,L]

##Handle https://example.com/de/fr/en/de/en TO https://example.com/de urls.
RewriteRule ^(en|us|de|fr)/(?:(?:en|us|de|fr)/)*(?:en|us|de|fr)/?$ $1 [NC,R=301,L]

##Handle https://example.com/de/fr/path TO https://example.com/de/path urls.
RewriteRule ^(en|us|de|fr)/(?:(?:en|us|de|fr)/)*(.*)/?$ $1/$2 [NC,R=301,L]

##handle https://example.com/def/frq/path TO https://example.com/en urls here.
RewriteRule ^([a-zA-Z]{3,})/.*$ en [R=301,L]