Universal Link trick: matching only one path component

by saiday

Let's say we want our apple-app-site-association rules to match only <domain>/anypath/ but not matching any more additional URL components based on it (such as <domain>/anypath/anotherpath/).

What we have to write in apple-app-site-association is: 

paths: [  
    "NOT /*/?*",
    "/*/"
]
  • ?
    • matching one character
  • *
    • matching zero to any characters

The ?* pattern above implies there is more than one path component (at least one path component) matched.

The interesting thing is, if * is defined in the middle of the URL pattern, it does not allow * to match zero characters. (such as /path/*/another/ will not match path/another/).

Only the trailing * would have zero characters matching behavior.

That's why I consider it a trick.