What are the potential issues with using regular expressions in PHP for URL rewriting?

One potential issue with using regular expressions in PHP for URL rewriting is that complex patterns can be difficult to read and maintain. To solve this, it is recommended to break down the patterns into smaller, more manageable parts and use comments to document their purpose. 

// Example of breaking down a complex regular expression pattern for URL rewriting
$pattern = '/^\/blog\/(?P<year>\d{4})\/(?P<month>\d{2})\/(?P<day>\d{2})\/(?P<slug>[a-z0-9-]+)\/?$/';

// Broken down pattern with comments
$pattern = '/^\/blog\/
            (?P<year>\d{4})\/
            (?P<month>\d{2})\/
            (?P<day>\d{2})\/
            (?P<slug>[a-z0-9-]+)\/?$/x';

Keywords

Regular expressions PHP URL rewriting potential issues error types

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