Why does this regex match too much? (Doesn't stop at slash) [duplicate]

Answer 1

Use a non-greedy modifier to make the + match as few characters as possible instead of as many as possible:

$pattern = str_replace(':any', '(.+?)', $pattern);
                                   ^

You probably also want to add delimiters round your regular expression and anchor it to the start of the string:

$pattern = '#^/foo/:any/#';