[nginx] Nginx location priority

What order do location directives fire in?

It fires in this order.

1. = (exactly)

   location = /path

2. ^~ (forward match)

   location ^~ /path

3. ~ (regular expression case sensitive)

   location ~ /path/

4. ~* (regular expression case insensitive)

   location ~* .(jpg|png|bmp)

5. /

   location /path

Locations are evaluated in this order:

1. location = /path/file.ext {} Exact match
2. location ^~ /path/ {} Priority prefix match -> longest first
3. location ~ /Paths?/ {} (case-sensitive regexp) and location ~* /paths?/ {} (case-insensitive regexp) -> first match
4. location /path/ {} Prefix match -> longest first

The priority prefix match (number 2) is exactly as the common prefix match (number 4), but has priority over any regexp.

For both prefix matche types the longest match wins.

Case-sensitive and case-insensitive have the same priority. Evaluation stops at the first matching rule.

Documentation says that all prefix rules are evaluated before any regexp, but if one regexp matches then no standard prefix rule is used. That's a little bit confusing and does not change anything for the priority order reported above.

There is a handy online tool for testing location priority now:
location priority testing online