mod_rewrite directories to fuseactions - [N], path-info, and infinity

[Vogelfrei]

I'd like to use mod_rewrite to disguise the Fusebox nested circuit model (dot notation) as nested directories. That is, if the user requests
http://www.example.com/products/skis/alpine/
I want to rewrite them to
http://www.example.com/index.php?action=products.skis.alpine

The key here is that there can be an arbitrary number of items in the dot-delimited list. (In practice, it rarely goes more than 3 deep, but I'd like this to be completely flexible.)

So, here's the problem: to address the arbitrary length of the action, I decided to try using [N] in my RewriteRule. And it almost works. But unfortunately, the path-info is getting appended to my rewritten URI, throwing it into a loop.

Here is the full text of my .htaccess file.

RewriteEngine on

RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI}	!favicon.ico [NC]
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI}	!robots.txt [NC]
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI}	!images/ [NC]
RewriteRule ^([^/]+)/(.*)$	$1.$2 [N]

RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI}	!index.php [NC]
RewriteRule ^([a-z0-9.]+)	index.php?action=$1&%{QUERY_STRING} [L]

The heart of the matter, of course, is the first RewriteRule with the [N].

So if I request http://www.example.com/products/skis/alpine/ , I'll see the following RewriteLog entries:

add path-info postfix: /www/products -> /www/products/skis/alpine
strip per-dir prefix: /www/products/skis/alpine -> products/skis/alpine
applying pattern '^([^/]+)/(.*)$' to uri 'products/skis/alpine'
RewriteCond: input='/products/skis/alpine' pattern='!favicon.ico' => matched
RewriteCond: input='/products/skis/alpine' pattern='!robots.txt' => matched
RewriteCond: input='/products/skis/alpine' pattern='!images/' => matched
rewrite products/skis/alpine -> products.skis/alpine
add per-dir prefix: products.skis/alpine -> /www/products.skis/alpine

Looks good so far.

add path-info postfix: /www/products.skis/alpine -> /www/products.skis/alpine/skis/alpine

Uh-oh. You can see where this is going to lead.

strip per-dir prefix: /www/products.skis/alpine/skis/alpine -> products.skis/alpine/skis/alpine
applying pattern '^([^/]+)/(.*)$' to uri 'products.skis/alpine/skis/alpine'
RewriteCond: input='/products/skis/alpine' pattern='!favicon.ico' => matched
RewriteCond: input='/products/skis/alpine' pattern='!robots.txt' => matched
RewriteCond: input='/products/skis/alpine' pattern='!images/' => matched
rewrite products.skis/alpine/skis/alpine -> products.skis.alpine/skis/alpine

The ironic part is that at this point, my action looks how I want it: "products.skis.alpine". But that pesky path-info isn't going to let us stop.

add per-dir prefix: products.skis.alpine/skis/alpine -> /www/products.skis.alpine/skis/alpine
add path-info postfix: /www/products.skis.alpine/skis/alpine -> /www/products.skis.alpine/skis/alpine/skis/alpine
strip per-dir prefix: /www/products.skis.alpine/skis/alpine/skis/alpine -> products.skis.alpine/skis/alpine/skis/alpine
applying pattern '^([^/]+)/(.*)$' to uri 'products.skis.alpine/skis/alpine/skis/alpine'
RewriteCond: input='/products/skis/alpine' pattern='!favicon.ico' => matched
RewriteCond: input='/products/skis/alpine' pattern='!robots.txt' => matched
RewriteCond: input='/products/skis/alpine' pattern='!images/' => matched
rewrite products.skis.alpine/skis/alpine/skis/alpine -> products.skis.alpine.skis/alpine/skis/alpine
add per-dir prefix: products.skis.alpine.skis/alpine/skis/alpine -> /www/products.skis.alpine.skis/alpine/skis/alpine
add path-info postfix: /www/products.skis.alpine.skis/alpine/skis/alpine -> /www/products.skis.alpine.skis/alpine/skis/alpine/skis/alpine
....

ad infinitum. (or rather, ad kill apache.)

So... Can I do something to keep that path-info from being postfixed? or am I barking up the wrong tree using the [N] flag at all?