What are the potential pitfalls of not using a .htaccess file when configuring MOD_REWRITE rules in PHP?

Without using a .htaccess file to configure MOD_REWRITE rules in PHP, you may encounter issues with managing redirects, rewriting URLs, and controlling access to certain directories or files. To solve this problem, you can directly include the necessary rewrite rules in your PHP script using the Apache module mod_rewrite.

RewriteEngine On
RewriteRule ^oldpage$ newpage [L]