Mapping URLs to Handler Code

Advanced Pattern-Matching for URLs and Handlers

A regular expression, often called a pattern, is an expression that describes a set of strings. They are usually used to give a concise description of a set, without having to list all elements. For example, the set containing the three strings "Handel", "Händel", and "Haendel" can be described by the pattern H(ä|ae?)ndel (or alternatively, it is said that the pattern matches each of the three strings). In most formalisms, if there is any regex that matches a particular set then there is an infinite number of such expressions. Most formalisms provide the following operations to construct regular expressions.

Alternation

A vertical bar separates alternatives. For example, gray|grey can match "gray" or "grey".

Grouping

Parentheses are used to define the scope and precedence of the operators (among other uses). For example, gray|grey and gr(a|e)y. are equivalent patterns which both describe the set of "gray" and "grey"

Quantification

A quantifier after a token (such as a character) or group specifies how often that preceding element is allowed to occur. The most common quantifiers are the question mark ?, the asterisk * (derived from the Kleene star), and the plus sign +.

?	The question mark indicates there is zero or one of the preceding element. For example, colou?r matches both "color" and "colour".
*	The asterisk indicates there are zero or more of the preceding element. For example, ab*c matches "ac", "abc", "abbc", "abbbc", and so on.
+	The plus sign indicates that there is one or more of the preceding element. For example, ab+c matches "abc", "abbc", "abbbc", and so on, but not "ac".

These constructions can be combined to form arbitrarily complex expressions, much like one can construct arithmetical expressions from numbers and the operations +, −, ×, and ÷. For example, H(ae?|ä)ndel and H(a|ae|ä)ndel are both valid patterns which match the same strings as the earlier example, H(ä|ae?)ndel.

There are also 'lazy' quantifiers-- you can put a ? in front of a * or a +, to cause 'lazy' evaluation. Here's an example of this from http://www.regular-expressions.info/repeat.html

Suppose you want to use a regex to match an HTML tag. You know that the input will be a valid HTML file, so the regular expression does not need to exclude any invalid use of sharp brackets. If it sits between sharp brackets, it is an HTML tag.

Most people new to regular expressions will attempt to use <.+>. They will be surprised when they test it on a string like This is a <EM>first</EM> test. You might expect the regex to match <EM> and when continuing after that match, </EM>.

But it does not. The regex will match <EM>first</EM>. Obviously not what we wanted. The reason is that the plus is greedy. That is, the plus causes the regex engine to repeat the preceding token as often as possible. Only if that causes the entire regex to fail, will the regex engine backtrack. That is, it will go back to the plus, make it give up the last iteration, and proceed with the remainder of the regex. Let's take a look inside the regex engine to see in detail how this works and why this causes our regex to fail. After that, I will present you with two possible solutions.

Consider the following:

handlers:
- url: /profile/(.*?)/(.*)
  script: /employee/\2/\1.py

handlers:
- url: /
  script: home.py

- url: /index\.html
  script: home.py

- url: /stylesheets
  static_dir: stylesheets

- url: /admin/.*
  script: admin.py
  login: admin

- url: /.*
  script: not_found.py