title: mod_rewrite and dot at END of URI
body: <p>I have been developing a shop, which uses mod_rewrite to allow us to make the URIs more readable, for instance:</p>
  
  <p><a href="http://www.example.com/shop/Tools" rel="nofollow">http://www.example.com/shop/Tools</a></p>
  
  <p>Will be rewritten to</p>
  
  <p><a href="http://www.example.com/index.php?area=shop&amp;folder=Tools" rel="nofollow">http://www.example.com/index.php?area=shop&amp;folder=Tools</a></p>
  
  <p>My rewrite rule is as follows:</p>
  
  <p><code>RewriteRule ^shop/([^?#]+) index.php?area=shop&amp;folder=$1 [NC,QSA,L]</code></p>
  
  <p>However, this breaks when the folder name ends in . (dot), as I discovered when testing with a folder name ending in "etc."</p>
  
  <p>It seems any trailing dots are totally removed before <code>$_GET</code> has been populated. If I put another character after the dot, it's fine, if the URI ends in any number of dots, they are removed</p>
  
  <p>Is there a way to stop this from happening?</p>