[variables] Using variables in Nginx location rules

In Nginx, I'm trying to define a variable which allows me to configure a sub-folder for all my location blocks. I did this:

set $folder '/test';

location $folder/ {
   [...]
}

location $folder/something {
   [...]
}

Unfortunately, this doesn't seem to work. While Nginx doesn't complain about the syntax, it returns a 404 when requesting /test/. If I write the folder in explicitly, it works. So how can I use variables in location blocks?

A modified python version of @danack's PHP generate script. It generates all files & folders that live inside of build/ to the parent directory, replacing all {{placeholder}} matches. You need to cd into build/ before running the script.

File structure

build/
-- (files/folders you want to generate)
-- build.py

sites-available/...
sites-enabled/...
nginx.conf
...

build.py

import os, re

# Configurations
target = os.path.join('.', '..')
variables = {
  'placeholder': 'your replacement here'
}


# Loop files
def loop(cb, subdir=''):
  dir = os.path.join('.', subdir);

  for name in os.listdir(dir):
    file = os.path.join(dir, name)
    newsubdir = os.path.join(subdir, name)

    if name == 'build.py': continue
    if os.path.isdir(file): loop(cb, newsubdir)
    else: cb(subdir, name)


# Update file
def replacer(subdir, name):
  dir  = os.path.join(target, subdir)
  file = os.path.join(dir, name)
  oldfile = os.path.join('.', subdir, name)

  with open(oldfile, "r") as fin:
    data = fin.read()

  for key, replacement in variables.iteritems():
    data = re.sub(r"{{\s*" + key + "\s*}}", replacement, data)

  if not os.path.exists(dir):
    os.makedirs(dir)

  with open(file, "w") as fout:
    fout.write(data)


# Start variable replacements.
loop(replacer)

You could do the opposite of what you proposed.

location (/test)/ {
   set $folder $1;
}

location (/test_/something {
   set $folder $1;
}

This is many years late but since I found the solution I'll post it here. By using maps it is possible to do what was asked:

map $http_host $variable_name {
    hostnames;

    default       /ap/;
    example.com   /api/;
    *.example.org /whatever/;
}

server {
    location $variable_name/test {
        proxy_pass $auth_proxy;
    }
}

If you need to share the same endpoint across multiple servers, you can also reduce the cost by simply defaulting the value:

map "" $variable_name {
    default       /test/;
}

Map can be used to initialise a variable based on the content of a string and can be used inside http scope allowing variables to be global and sharable across servers.