Pagination and mod rewrite - mod-rewrite

Question

The modrewrite below works when i have this which is exactly how i want: "www.mysite.com/files/person/john.html"
files.php?q=person
Options +FollowSymLinks
RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteRule ^(.*)/(.*) /$1.php?q=$2 [L]
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteRule ^(.*) /files.php?q=$1 [L]
AddHandler application/x-httpd-php5 .html .htm .txt .php
The problem I have is when i have pagination and i have more than one person to display like this: "www.mysite.com/person/2" this becomes person.php, however there is no person.php and the modrewrite should only look at this condition below:
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteRule ^(.*) /files.php?q=$1 [L]
The thing is this "www.mysite.com/person/2" works when i only have this modrewrite:
Options +FollowSymLinks
RewriteEngine On
#RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
#RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
#RewriteRule ^(.*)/(.*) /$1.php?q=$2 [L]
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteRule ^(.*) /files.php?q=$1 [L]
AddHandler application/x-httpd-php5 .html .htm .txt .php
however, the minute i uncomment it, it stops working? what to do, any ideas?

Answer 1

you can use regex for this.
DirectoryIndex index.php
<IfModule mod_rewrite.c>
Options +FollowSymLinks
RewriteEngine On
RewriteBase /
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteRule ^(.*)/([a-zA-Z]+)(.html)?$ /$1.php?q=$2 [L]
RewriteRule ^(.*)/([0-9]+)$ /files.php?q=$1&p=$2 [L]
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteRule ^(.*) /files.php?q=$1 [L]
</IfModule>
explanation for regex
() : means group and match that
[a-zA-Z] : means only letters lower or upper
.html : means match ".html"
? : means 0 or more times
[0-9] : means only numbers 0 to 9
+ : means at least 1 or more times