How do I remove the file extension from URLs in nginx? - nginx

Question

Let's say I have a file named careers.php, how do I serve this file when they click a link that goes to http://example.com/careers without the file extension for both .html and .php files with nginx?
Please note that the solution has to account for query strings. For instance, the URL may be http://example.com/careers?lang=fr.
Also, I'd like the solution to also try subdirectories as well. For instance; if my folder structure on the server is /views/careers.php, I want http://example.com/careers to still serve /views/careers.php.
My current configuration looks like the following:
server {
listen 80 default_server;
root /usr/share/nginx/landing-page;
index index.php index.html;
server_name example.com;
location / {
try_files $uri $uri/ =404;
}
error_page 404 /404.html;
error_page 500 502 503 504 /50x.html;
location ~ \.php$ {
try_files $uri =404;
fastcgi_split_path_info ^(.+\.php)(/.+)$;
fastcgi_pass unix:/var/run/php5-fpm.sock;
fastcgi_index index.php;
fastcgi_param SCRIPT_FILENAME $document_root$fastcgi_script_name;
include fastcgi_params;
}
}

Answer 1

A common solution uses try_files with a named location. The existing location ~ \.php$ block is used to process .php files. Also avoid any if statements.
location / {
try_files $uri $uri/ #rewrite;
}
location #rewrite {
rewrite ^ $uri.php last;
}
location ~ \.php$ {
try_files $uri =404;
...
}

Answer 2

You can use try_files:
try_files $uri $uri.php $uri/ =404;

Answer 3

I know that this is an old post, but I feel like this was never perfectly explained or explained using the most simple solution.
Here is an example of how I accomplished this for a React Application served using nginx for my Portfolio Website hosted on Digital Ocean.
When simplified it's super easy to accomplish. The location block should look like this.
//Originally my location block was set up like this
location /chatgpt-homepage.html {
root /var/www/myportfoliowebsite.com/html/chatgpt-app-homepage/build;
}
//What needs to happen is you need to remove the .html from your location
//and
//Add try_files $uri $uri.html $uri/ =404; underneath your root section of code
//New Location Block example below
location /chatgpt-homepage {
root /var/www/myportfoliowebsite.com/html/chatgpt-app-homepage/build;
try_files $uri $uri.html $uri/ =404;
}