RewriteRule without changing the address in the browser

Question

I'm trying to make an address redirect to another one without actually changing the URL in the browser address bar.

User go to /path/page.php and see what is displayed on /path/index.php.

In the address bar the URL remains /path/page.php.

This is the code for the redirection:

Options +FollowSymLinks
RewriteEngine On
RewriteRule page.php index.php [NC]

I'm wondering if I need to use [P] for this task :/

Answer 1

[P] is a proxy flag, you need it only for silent redirection to another domain or web-server (in this case Apache works like HTTP proxy). In your case page.php and index.php reside on the same server, so [P] flag is useless.