RegExpBasedFilterInvocationDefinitionMap & Wildcards

[e.medina.m]

In the method public ConfigAttributeDefinition lookupAttributes(String url), Acegi looks the ConfigAttributeDefinition using Perl5Matcher:

boolean matched = matcher.matches(url, entryHolder.getCompiledPattern());

But the method 'matches' in Perl5Matcher 'determines if a string exactly matches a given pattern', so no wildcards can be used.

Shouldn't be better to use the method 'contains' instead?

Anyway, how can be wildcards defined?

[Ben Alex]

Quoting the Contacts Sample Application's applicationContext-acegi-security.xml:

<!-- BASIC Regular Expression Syntax (for beginners):

\A means the start of the string (ie the beginning of the URL)
\Z means the end of the string (ie the end of the URL)
. means any single character
* means null or any number of repetitions of the last expression (so .* means zero or more characters)

Some examples:

Expression: \A/my/directory/.*\Z
Would match: /my/directory/
/my/directory/hello.html

Expression: \A/.*\Z
Would match: /hello.html
/

Expression: \A/.*/secret.html\Z
Would match: /some/directory/secret.html
/another/secret.html
Not match: /anothersecret.html (missing required /)
-->

As such .* will match any character.

Most people prefer to use the Ant Path syntax. See http://acegisecurity.sourceforge.net...lterinvocation for more info.