mod_rewrite, need regex help

[brianmuse]

Let me preface by saying that I am completely new to regular expressions and mod_rewrite.

I've been looking around for a while and I haven't found anything posted that could help me specifically. Heres what I'd like:

URL typed into browser:
www.website.com/user/brian/?extra=1

Rewritten URI
www.website.com/users.php?user=brian&extra=1

Basically looking to have the initial URL be static, but with the possibility of a dynamic variable appended to the end.

I know the basics of mod_rewrite from tutorials I've found online, but can't seem to figure out this specific problem.

Thanks,
Brian

[Touchtecservers]

/^(www.website.com)/user/(.+)/?(.*)$/

$1/users.php?user=$2&$3

?? maybe

[brianmuse]

I tried something similar already with no luck. Gives me a 404.

This is what i tried:

RewriteRule ^user/(.+)/?(.*)$/ users.php?user=$1&$2

[Touchtecservers]

Close.

RewriteRule ^(.*)user/(.+)/\?(.*)$ $1users.php?user=$2&$3

[brianmuse]

Still no luck. Did you manage to get that working yourself?

[brianmuse]

I'm getting close, but can't seal the deal.

RewriteRule ^user/([^/\.]+)/refer=([^/\.]+)/?$ users.php?user=$1&refer=$2 [L]

Is working for the example URI
/user/testname/refer=3

As soon as i try to add in the "?" character it fails and gives me a 404.

DOES NOT WORK:
RewriteRule ^user/([^/\.]+)/\?refer=([^/\.]+)/?$ users.php?user=$1&refer=$2 [L]

any advice?

[Touchtecservers]

My Regex worked fine for the example that you gave.

In your example above, you need to ESCAPE the ? character, as ? is used in Regex to ask if there are 0 or 1 occurances.

Try:

RewriteRule /^.*user/(\w+)/[\?](.*)$/ users.php?user=$1&$2

That should move the username, and keep the rest of the URL intact, including after the "?"