str_replace + regular expression

Question

I have:

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/43242&cat=aa&id=342342
http://stackoverflow.com/questions/43242&cat=aa&body=434&id=232
http://stackoverflow.com/questions/43242&cat=aa&call=2323&id=14143434

i would like receive:

this link without parameter id:

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/43242&cat=aa
http://stackoverflow.com/questions/43242&cat=aa&body=434
http://stackoverflow.com/questions/43242&cat=aa&call=2323

how this make with PHP? str_replace + regular expression?

Answer 1

preg_replace('~&id=[0-9]+~', '', $str);

Answer 2

Use the appropriate function for this, not regular expressions since URL's aren't regular.

You should then split the query part, which can be done with regular expressions, but I'd like to split on & and then filter out the ID part.