The regular expression: (?-imsx:\?.*?(?=/|$)) matches as follows: NODE EXPLANATION ---------------------------------------------------------------------- (?-imsx: group, but do not capture (case-sensitive) (with ^ and $ matching normally) (with . not matching \n) (matching whitespace and # normally): ---------------------------------------------------------------------- \? '?' ---------------------------------------------------------------------- .*? any character except \n (0 or more times (matching the least amount possible)) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- (?= look ahead to see if there is: ---------------------------------------------------------------------- / '/' ---------------------------------------------------------------------- | OR ---------------------------------------------------------------------- $ before an optional \n, and the end of the string ---------------------------------------------------------------------- ) end of look-ahead ---------------------------------------------------------------------- ) end of grouping ----------------------------------------------------------------------