PHP url routing regex

Question

I am using a regular expression to route my application, this is the regex I am using:

@/users/([a-zA-Z0-9\-\_]+)/posts@

But unfortunately it matches against these these urls too:

/users/:uid/posts/:pid
/users/:uid/posts/:pid/comment/:cid

But it shouldn't, it should match exact the same url so only:

/users/:uid/posts

What should I change in the regex to make it match the exact same string?

Thanks for help

Answer 1

You should include anchors for the beginning (^) and end ($) of the string:

@^/users/([a-zA-Z0-9\-\_]+)/posts/?$@

I also allowed for an optional / at the end of the URL.