nginx try_files with static image or fallback to php file with rewrite

Question

location /image_mini { # try_files /static_images/$2.jpg; rewrite ^/image_mini/([^.]+)-00([0-9]+)\.jpg$ /image.php?a=$2 last; } 

I use this rewrite rule to display images on my website. For example, if I want to display Image ID #123456789, I would use https://www.example.com/image_mini/some_cool_seo_keywords-00123456789.jpg

Then, image.php will check if /static_images/00123456789.jpg is found in local cache, if not it will create the file.

I assume I would get much better performance if nginx could look for the local static file before fallback to image.php

I tried doing this with try_files but I am unsure how to extract the image ID from the URL and i'm stuck here :( Any help would be appreciated

Answer 1

You can use your regular expression in the location statement. For example:

location ~* ^/image_mini/[^.]+-00([0-9]+)\.jpg$ { try_files /static_images/$1.jpg /image.php?a=$1; } 

Note that the evaluation of regular expression location statements is ordered. See this document for more. Also, this document on the correct syntax for try_files.