Regex Location Can Be Exact Match

Gixy Check ID: regex_exact_match

When a regex location matches a single literal path (anchored with ^ and $, no special regex characters), it can be replaced with an exact-match location (=) for better performance.

NGINX processes exact-match locations first and skips the regex engine entirely, making them significantly faster.

Incorrect:

location ~ ^/api/health$ {
    return 200;
}

This uses the regex engine to match what is effectively a fixed string.

Correct:

location = /api/health {
    return 200;
}

The exact-match location achieves the same result without regex overhead.

When this check does not apply

This check only flags case-sensitive regex locations (~). Case-insensitive regex locations (~*) are not flagged because the = modifier is always case-sensitive, and converting would change matching behavior.

Patterns that contain any regex features (character classes, quantifiers, groups, alternation) are also not flagged.

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