# Question about rewrite directive **URL:** \ **Category:** NGINX\ **Created:** [January 28, 2016, 3:12pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/question-about-rewrite-directive/243960 "2016-01-28T15:12:33Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 5\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Sadaf\_N](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/s/858c86/32.png) [@Sadaf\_N](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/Sadaf_N)\ **Post date:** [January 28, 2016, 3:12pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/question-about-rewrite-directive/243960/1 "2016-01-28T15:12:33Z")
Hi, a customer has this in his .htaccess file (among other things): RewriteCond %{REQUEST\_FILENAME} !-f RewriteCond %{REQUEST\_FILENAME} !-d RewriteRule ^(.+).(\d+).(php|js|css|png|jpg|gif|gzip)$ $1.$3 [L] This is to enable versioning of various files, so you can have long “Expires” on them and still update them as needed while retaining the old ones, if needed. I want to deliver static files directly from nginx, so I created this: ``` location ~* ^(.+)\.(\d+)\.(js|css|png|jpg|gif|gzip)$ { rewrite ^(.+)\.(\d+)\.(js|css|png|jpg|gif|gzip)$ $1.$3 ; expires 1h; } ``` This works in most cases, except for files which already have a version number of some sort. Namely: coda-slider.1.1.1.1452703531.js and two others from the jquery framework. What’s wrong with my nginx rewrite? Because in apache, the rewrite rule works as intended. nginx 1.8.0 on FreeBSD 10-amd64. Regards Rainer ---
**Author:** ![unknown](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/u/4bbf92/32.png) [@unknown](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/unknown)\ **Post date:** [January 28, 2016, 10:04pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/question-about-rewrite-directive/243960/2 "2016-01-28T22:04:59Z")
> This is to enable versioning of various files, so you can have long > “Expires” on them and still update them as needed while retaining > the old ones, if needed. > > I want to deliver static files directly from nginx, so I created this: Not exactly sure about the notation in nginx but for regexp what about: > ``` > location ~* ^(.+)\.(\d+)\.(js|css|png|jpg|gif|gzip)$ { > > ``` ``` location ~* ^(.+)\.([\d\.]+)\.(js|css|png|jpg|gif|gzip)$ { ``` ## wbr Lukas Lukas Ruf [http://www.lpr.ch](http://www.lpr.ch) | Ad Personam Consecom [http://www.consecom.com](http://www.consecom.com) | Ad Laborem ---
**Author:** ![unknown](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/u/4bbf92/32.png) [@unknown](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/unknown)\ **Post date:** [January 28, 2016, 11:48pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/question-about-rewrite-directive/243960/3 "2016-01-28T23:48:58Z")
On Thu, Jan 28, 2016 at 03:12:16PM +0100, [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid) wrote: Hi there, > RewriteCond %{REQUEST\_FILENAME} !-f > RewriteCond %{REQUEST\_FILENAME} !-d > RewriteRule ^(.+).(\d+).(php|js|css|png|jpg|gif|gzip)$ $1.$3 [L] > ``` > location ~* ^(.+)\.(\d+)\.(js|css|png|jpg|gif|gzip)$ { > rewrite ^(.+)\.(\d+)\.(js|css|png|jpg|gif|gzip)$ $1.$3 ; > expires 1h; > } > > ``` > What’s wrong with my nginx rewrite? > Because in apache, the rewrite rule works as intended. I see two main differences there: Your apache RewriteRule has [L] on the end. Your nginx rewrite does not. Possibly you want “break” – [Module ngx\_http\_rewrite\_module](http://nginx.org/r/rewrite) Your apache RewriteRule is protected by RewriteCond. Your nginx rewrite is not. Possibly something involving try\_files or error\_page and a named location for fallback could achieve the same effect. ## f Francis D. [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid) ---
**Author:** ![unknown](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/u/4bbf92/32.png) [@unknown](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/unknown)\ **Post date:** [January 29, 2016, 12:15am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/question-about-rewrite-directive/243960/4 "2016-01-29T00:15:16Z")
> > > RewriteRule ^(.+).(\d+).(php|js|css|png|jpg|gif|gzip)$ $1.$3 [L] > > > location ~\* ^(.+).(\d+).(js|css|png|jpg|gif|gzip)$ { > > > coda-slider.1.1.1.js > > since the first series of digit-dot is matched by a). Which is correct. > If your customer has a file to be delivered that is named for example > > linux-4.2.1.gzip > > your regular expression would return > > linux-4.2.gzip > > since it strips off just the last digits-dot pair. OK, that would be sub-optimal 😉 On request, the customer switched off the cache-breaking, so that problem has been solved. As for the regex itself, I checked it in [regex101.com](http://regex101.com) and it did match the files. The customer has elected not to use typo3’s static file-cache and serve every page from typo3’s page-cache inside the database. To get some sort of sanity, I want to micro-cache all successful GET requests for a minute. Thanks for your ideas. Rainer ---
**Author:** ![unknown](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/u/4bbf92/32.png) [@unknown](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/unknown)\ **Post date:** [January 29, 2016, 12:07am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/question-about-rewrite-directive/243960/5 "2016-01-29T00:07:05Z")
> > This is to enable versioning of various files, so you can have long > > “Expires” on them and still update them as needed while retaining > > the old ones, if needed. > > > > I want to deliver static files directly from nginx, so I created this: > > Not exactly sure about the notation in nginx but for regexp what > about: > > > ``` > > location ~* ^(.+)\.(\d+)\.(js|css|png|jpg|gif|gzip)$ { > > > > ``` Btw. ``` a) ".+" matches a series of any character b) "\d+" matches a series of any digit ``` > coda-slider.1.1.1.1452703531.js would then be returned as ``` coda-slider.1.1.1.js ``` since the first series of digit-dot is matched by a). If your customer has a file to be delivered that is named for example ``` linux-4.2.1.gzip ``` your regular expression would return ``` linux-4.2.gzip ``` since it strips off just the last digits-dot pair. wbr Lukas – Lukas Ruf [http://www.lpr.ch](http://www.lpr.ch) | Ad Personam Consecom [http://www.consecom.com](http://www.consecom.com) | Ad Laborem