301 mod rewrite redirect

Can somone tell me what is the difference between these two statements:

RewriteCond %{THE_REQUEST} ^[A-Z]{3,9}\ /index\.html\ HTTP/
RewriteRule ^index\.html$ http://www.example.com/ [R=301,L]

RewriteCond %{THE_REQUEST} ^[A-Z]{3,9}\ /.*index\.html\ HTTP/
RewriteRule ^(.*)index\.html$ http://www.example.com/$1 [R=301,L]

I am trying to mod rewrite my index.html file to the root domain and have found these two examples, but they are different.

thanks

 

The first one will only redirect http://www.example.com/index.html

The second will redirect anything that has index.html on the end of it to the folder it is in.

They will both do the same thing, but the second goes a step further.

 

Thanks for the answer! Does it need to be in the .htaccess of every folder or just the root?

 

just the root, otherwise it will have no effect on

http://www.example.com/

 

thanks for the help!