i have coded my htaccess and php file so i can show all pages in 1 php file and have a different text file included for the content.

RewriteEngine On
RewriteBase /
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f [or]
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d [or]
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !^/index.php
RewriteRule ^(.*).html$ /index.php?query=$1

PHP Code:

if (!$query) {$query = home;}
$query = 'includes/'.$query.'.txt';
include $query; 


if possible i want it so if the text file doesnt exist it will show my htaccess error 404 page

I assume the page name is being passed to the database? If it doesn't exist, write a redirect directly onto the index.php page.

any other suggestions.

You can try checking the existence of a file before hand using the curl and the http methods (get/head) and if it fails to return the content redirect to a common file if not redirect to the requested page (make it permanent redirection 301).

if possible i want it so if the text file doesnt exist it will show my htaccess error 404 page

And what does it currently do?

Looks like I am not the only one who could not follow the logic in the OP.

I see, you're including a text file, not making a database query. Still, the solution isn't difficult. Check for the file, before any HTML is outputted, and if it doesn't exist, redirect to the 404 page, and be sure to send a real 404 header from that file. Either that, or include text from a file, say "404.inc", and send 404 header right in the index.php page, which won't matter since it appears you are rewriting that page URL.