lazy matching and optional character in regex

Asked Sep 16 '19 at 17:27

Active Sep 16 '19 at 17:31

Viewed 30 times

Consider these two urls:

http:website.com/?q=hello
http:website.com/?q=hello&z=world

I would like to match the part after the query url parameter q= and (possibly) before another &. That is, I would like to match hello in the first string, and hello in the second.

I am using the regex \?q=(.+?)& but this of course fails to match the first hello that is not preceded by &.

Trying to make the & optional with \?q=(.+?)&? does not work either.

I do not understand what is the issue. Any ideas?

Thanks!

edited Sep 16 '19 at 17:31

asked Sep 16 '19 at 17:27

ℕʘʘḆḽḘ

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Shouldn't the second match be `hellod`? – Jacob G. Sep 16 '19 at 17:30
haha good catch bro – ℕʘʘḆḽḘ Sep 16 '19 at 17:31
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Instead of `(.+?)`, you can match any character that is not a `&` with `([^&]+)`. – Jacob G. Sep 16 '19 at 17:34
its actually a very good trick – ℕʘʘḆḽḘ Sep 16 '19 at 17:35

lazy matching and optional character in regex

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