How to get the last segment of the path?

Question

URLs de exemplo:
content/edit
content/edit/
content/edit?q=
content/edit/?q=

I tried to make the code but it always fails when the url does not have "/" or "?" and if there is "/?" at the end. The code I made was:

.*\/([a-zA-Z0-9]*)[\/\?].*

That takes the value "Edit".

Answer 1

A very simple way, without using regular expression:

//Obtenha a URL sem as variáveis
$url = $_SERVER['REDIRECT_URL'];

//exploda 
$array_url = explode('/',$url);

//Caso a URL termine com /, a última posição do array estará em branco, então contorne isso
$array_url=array_filter($array_url);

//A última posição do array equivale à ultima palavra.
$palavra = array_pop($array_url);

Answer 2

The simplest solution is using PHP, as presented in other answers, but if you only want the regular expression to use next to the file .htaccess, see the solution below.

To answer this, we first need to understand the structure of a URI:

  foo://example.com:8042/over/there;param=value;p2;p3?name=ferret#nose
  \_/   \______________/\_________/ \_______________/ \_________/ \__/
   |           |            |              |              |         |
scheme     authority       path          params         query   fragment

We can realize that after the path the values of param, query and fragment. We then begin by analyzing only the path:

To get the last segment of path, we use regular expression:

\/?([a-zA-Z0-9_\-+]+)\/?$

That is, the value can start with a slider, followed by a non-zero sequence of letters, numbers or _, - and + (can freely change this part), followed or not by a bar, ending the value. In this way, the following Urls below will be properly analyzed:

edit
/edit
/edit/
/content/edit
/content/edit/

See working on Regex101.

Now, we must add to the expression the part that will analyze the possible existence of params in the URL. To simplify, as it is not of our interest to know what are the parameters of the path, let’s consider as parameter any string other than / that follows the character ;. Both the character and the sequence will be optional, then the regular expression becomes:

\/?([a-zA-Z0-9_\-+]+)\/?(?:\;[^\/]*)?$

So both the Urls above and below will work:

edit
/edit
/edit/
/content/edit
/content/edit/
/content/edit;param=foo
/content;param=foo/edit/

See working on Regex101.

The same logic will apply to the query URL, being defined as any string that follows the character ?. Thus the regular expression becomes:

\/?([a-zA-Z0-9_\-+]+)\/?(?:\;[^\/]*)?(?:\?.*)?$

So all the Urls below will work:

edit
/edit
/edit/
/content/edit
/content/edit/
/content/edit;param=foo
/content;param=foo/edit/
/content/edit?q=foo
/content/edit/?q=foo

See working on Regex101.

In addition, the Fragment URL, being defined as any string that follows the character #.

\/?([a-zA-Z0-9_\-+]+)\/?(?:\;[^\/]*)?(?:\?.*)?(?:\#.*)?$

Thus working for all possible URL variations:

edit
/edit
/edit/
/content/edit
/content/edit/
/content/edit;param=foo
/content;param=foo/edit/
/content/edit?q=foo
/content/edit/?q=foo
/content/edit#foo
/content/edit/#foo

In all, the only captured group will be edit.

See working on Regex101.

The same expression can be simplified to:

\/?([\w+-]+)\/?(?|\;[^\/]*|[?#].*)?$

Collaboration of Guilherme Lautert.

See working on Regex101.

Answer 3

I believe this regex solves your problem:

(\/\w+\/\w+)((\/?$)|(\?.+$))

I created a test in the link below:

https://regex101.com/r/b48kWg/1

The content you need is in group 1 (green)

Answer 4

Can use preg_split() to capture all values between bars and call array_reverse() to reverse the order of the elements, playing the latter as the first. preg_match() checks if the current elm starts with some letter otherwise moves on to the next element this deals with the case ?Q=abc

function ultimaParteURL($url){
    $segmentos = array_reverse(preg_split('#/#', $url , null, PREG_SPLIT_NO_EMPTY));
    foreach ($segmentos as $item){
        if(preg_match('#^[A-Z]#i', $item)) return $item; 
    }
}

echo ultimaParteURL('content/edit/?Q=abc') .'<br>';
echo ultimaParteURL('content/edit/') .'<br>';
echo ultimaParteURL('content/edit&abc=12015') .'<br>';

Example:

Array
(
    [0] => content
    [1] => edit?q=
)

After the call from array_reverse() flipped:

Array
(
    [0] => edit?q=
    [1] => content
)