htaccess RewriteRule : Problem to omit all after 1st argument - apache

Question

Goal: Want to rewrite all URLs of type
https://www.example.com/page/1234/?/blog/foo/bar/
to
https://www.example.com/page/1234/
In .htaccess I tried many variations along the line
RewriteEngine On
RewriteBase /
RewriteRule ^page/(\d+)/(.*)$ /page/$1 [R=301,L]
Using an .htaccess tester I see that at least the matching pattern is valid.
I would expect that the rewrite would not include anything after $1, but it does, and show the complete original URL.
What am I missing?

Answer 1

https://www.mypage.com/page/1234/?/blog/foo/bar/
Everything after the first ? is the query string part of the URL. By default, Apache passes the query string unaltered from the request to the target URL (unless you create a new query string yourself on the RewriteRule substitution). This explains why you are seeing the same query string on the target URL, without seemingly doing anything with it.
Incidentally, the RewriteRule pattern only matches against the URL-path only - this notably excludes the query string. To match the query string in mod_rewrite you need an additional condition that checks the QUERY_STRING server variable.
On Apache 2.4+ you can use the QSD (Query String Discard) flag to remove the query string from the target URL. Or, specify an empty query string on the substitution - by including a trailing ? (the ? itself does not appear on the resulting URL).
For example (on Apache 2.4):
RewriteCond %{QUERY_STRING} .
RewriteRule ^page/(\d+)/ /page/$1/ [QSD,R=301,L]
The RewriteCond directive checks for the presence of a query string, which is necessary to prevent a redirect loop.
The trailing (.*)$ on the RewriteRule pattern was superfluous.
You had omitted the trailing slash on the end of the substitution (that is present on the example URL). This would have also prevented a redirect loop, but as mentioned, this is not as per your example. (Alternatively, you could include the slash in the captured backreference.)
If you are still on Apache 2.2 then you would need to include a trailing ? instead of the QSD flag. For example:
RewriteRule ^page/(\d+)/ /page/$1/? [R=301,L]
You will need to clear your browser cache before testing, as 301 (permanent) redirects are cached persistently by the browser. For this reason, it is often easier to first test with 302 (temporary) redirects.