REGEX matching query string elements

[Ganners]

I am having trouble with a regular expression, the string is:

 

http://example.com/example-page?&profession[]=Nurses&skill[]=Renal/Dialysis

 

How my regular expression should work is a preg_replace which can grab either of these. At the moment I can grab both using:

 

(&)(profession)(\[\])(=)(.+)(&)

 

where 'profession' is a variable passed to the string in PHPm and could also be 'skill' etc. But this means my string has to end in a &!

 

So what I need is something to say if the end & isn't there, it is the end of the string and replace what it has matched otherwise. So I though stuff like:

 

(&)(profession)(\[\])(=)(.+)(&*) - *meaning 0 or more

 

(&)(profession)(\[\])(=)(.+)(&|\z) - Match & or end of string

 

might work, but they don't . I can work around by checking for the end & and sticking one on before the regex but that's cheating!

 

Thanks for any help!

 

Mark

[xyph]

Use a combination of parse_url and parse_str