重写URL删除部分URl

I need to remove part of a url.

http://whatever.net/api/users/1

I want to redirect this request without api in path to a file located in the same directory named api.php

I have following directory structure

root/api/{here we are}

So I need that my api.php file only receives user/1 in this case

I have tried the following configuration, but it doesn't work - Not Found

<IfModule mod_rewrite.c>
RewriteEngine on
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteRule ^api/(.*)$ api.php/$1 [L]
</IfModule>

Please help to get this working

Using .htaccess

Pass the modified path as a get variable

 <IfModule mod_rewrite.c>
    RewriteEngine on
    RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
    RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
    RewriteRule ^api/(.*)$ api.php?path=$1 [L]
 </IfModule>

Using PHP

In api.php, strip the first four characters (i,e /api ) from the REQEST_URI before using it.

$required_value = substr(REQUEST_URI,5);