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I have seen +? a lot in regex, but I'm not sure what it really stands for. I know + means 1 or more, and ? means 0 or 1. So does +? means 0 or more? In that case, why not just use *, which means 0 or more?

I just need to know if +? means 0 or more, or it means something different. Then I'll delete this question if it's too annoying.

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  • It means "one or more" - preferably as few as possible (shortest match). Commented Sep 26, 2015 at 1:55
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    ? has different meanings depending on where it appears. After a + or a * or another ? it means “non-greedy”. Commented Sep 26, 2015 at 1:56
  • @jessica The duplicate targets have multiple examples, plus this question: stackoverflow.com/questions/32491947 Commented Sep 26, 2015 at 2:01

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The ? makes the + "lazy" instead of "greedy". This means it tries to match as few times as possible, instead of trying to match as many times as possible.

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