ignore part of URL to force caching?

[António P. P. Almeida]

On 4 Out 2012 20h20 CEST, aweber at comcast.net wrote:

> I would like to "override" the intent of the app server that is
> basically disabling any caching of the backend file.  For example,
> they are embedding a "noCache=#######" parameter at the end of the
> URL (there are other parameters following, but if I can check the
> url up-to the "?"  that would suit me fine).
>
> This is actually a dynamically generated SWF file, but the file is
> then constant for a reasonable amount of time such that I'd like to
> cache it for a few minutes.

> Is there a way in a specific "location" to tell nginx to ignore the
> parameters (or any portion of the URL) when determining the cached
> object for that URL?  In other words, tell nginx to cache content
> for that location, say only 5min, and ignore all parameters when
> determining whether to cache and how to match cached content?

If I understand correctly. Inside your main cached location you can do:

if ($request_uri ~* noCache) {
   return 418;
}

error_page 418 =200 @other-cached-location;

And add @other-cached-location:

location @other-cached-location {
    # Set your cache parameters here and serve the content.
}

--- appa