What are some common uses for htaccess in PHP development?

One common use for .htaccess in PHP development is to set up URL rewriting for cleaner and more user-friendly URLs. This can be achieved by using mod_rewrite rules in the .htaccess file to redirect requests to specific PHP files or paths. Additionally, .htaccess can be used to restrict access to certain directories or files on the server by setting up authentication rules.

```php
RewriteEngine On
RewriteRule ^products/([0-9]+)/?$ product.php?id=$1 [NC,L]
```

This code snippet demonstrates how to rewrite a URL like `example.com/products/123` to `example.com/product.php?id=123` using mod_rewrite in .htaccess.