Match Question Mark in mod_rewrite rule regex

Question

I am looking to rewrite urls with multiple substrings. One substring is being requested as a subdirectory, while any others are requested as normal query string parameters.

Answer 1

You should be using the [QSA] flag instead of trying to rewrite the query string. [QSA] passes on the query string to the rewritten URL.

So your rule should look like:

...
RewriteEngine On
RewriteBase /
RewriteRule ^([A-Za-z0-9-_]+)/friends/? friends.php?user=$1 [QSA,L]

Your case is very similar to the example given for using the QSA flag in the mod_rewrite cookbook.