Unlike range quantifiers, the repetition quantifiers (question mark "?", asterisk "*", and plus "+") have few limits when performing regex searches, they are greedy. This is significant because these quantifiers settle for the minimum number of required matches, but always attempt to match as many times as possible, up to the maximum allowed. For example, the question mark "?" matches any preceding character 0 or 1 times, the asterisk "*" matches the preceding character 0 or more times, and the plus "+" matches the preceding character 1 or more times. Use repetition quantifiers in regex searches when large numbers of results are desired.
Example 1: Use "?" to match the "u" character 0 or 1 times.
colou?r
colour color
colouur Colour
Example 2: Use "*" to match the preceding item 0 or more times; use "." to match any character.
www\.my.*\.com
www.mysite.com www.mypage.com www.my.com
www.oursite.com mypage.com
Example 3: Use "+" to match the preceding "5" at least once.
bob5+@foo\.com
bob5@foo.com bob5555@foo.com
bob@foo.com bob65555@foo.com