Question

I’m creating some reports in Google Analytics.
I am trying to write a RegEx that will match

http://www.website.com/

http://www.website.com/?_string_begins_with_question_mark

But will not match

http://www.website.com/string_doesnt_begin_with_question_mark

Using Reggy (with POSIX Extended), I tried to create an optional group that would match a string beginning with a question mark, followed by any number of characters. I thought

(\?.+)?

would do the trick, but it ignores the question mark requirement, and matches any string.

I tried some variations:

http://www.website.com/(\?(.+))?

http://www.website.com/(\?.+)?

http://www.website.com/(?.+)?

Et cetera.

Any help is appreciated – Sorry if this has already been asked! I’m new to RegEx.

Thank you!

Answer 1

Your regexp

www.website.com/(\?.+)?

will still match anything that contains www.website.com/, no matter what comes after the slash. Have you tried appending a $ (end-of-input marker)?

www\.website\.com/(?:\?.+)?$

(Escape the dots for more precision; the ?: is just a way of indicating that the group is of no special meaning and does not have to be remembered — if you omit this, you can access the contents of the group by \1, e.g., in a replace operation.)