$re = '/(path)(?:$|\?(?:(?=.*\b(foo=)(\d+)\b.*$)|(?!foo=).*?))/m';
$str = 'path?foo=67
path?foo=67&bar=hello
path?bar=bye&foo=1&baz=12
path?bar=123
path
path?foo=37signals
path?foo=-8
something?foo=1';
preg_match_all($re, $str, $matches, PREG_SET_ORDER, 0);
// Print the entire match result
var_dump($matches);
Please keep in mind that these code samples are automatically generated and are not guaranteed to work. If you find any syntax errors, feel free to submit a bug report. For a full regex reference for PHP, please visit: http://php.net/manual/en/ref.pcre.php