Apache mod_rewrite: remove only a specific folder from the url and remove the extension from all the files inside that folder

Question

I've tried some different solutions I've found on the web on my .htaccess file (placed in the root of my website), but I always end up with an "Internal Server Error"...

I need a generic rule to remove a specific folder from the URL and the extension of all the files contained in it (adding a trailing slash at the end), with a redirection to the rewrited url. So, for example:

the folder I want to work on is called "pages", so the rule should not affect any other folder, and I want that the url

http://www.example.com/subfolder/pages/
will be rewrited/redirected to
http://www.example.com/subfolder/

and

http://www.example.com/subfolder/pages/page1.php
will be rewrited/redirected to
http://www.example.com/subfolder/page1/

and

http://www.example.com/subfolder/pages/subpages/page1.php
will be rewrited/redirected to
http://www.example.com/subfolder/subpages/page1/

and so on...

How can I achieve that?

Answer 1

This would be more logical in 2 rules:

1. Remove extension: /subfolder/pages/(.*).[^.]+ -> /subfolder/pages/$1/
2. Remove pages from URL: /subfolder/pages/(.*) -> /subfolder/$1

Didn't test the rules but this should get you there.