MatchesPath Vs Matches

[ankushprashar]

I noticed some behavior related to pattern matching on Apigee Edge that requires some looking into. Consider the following conditional flows in the Proxy endpoint (basepath: /examples) of a proxy as an example. The only difference is the operator being use “MatchesPath” in Flow A vs “Matches” in Flow B.

A.

<Flow name="root">

            <Request>

                <Step>

                    <Name>JS-ExtractVariables</Name>

                </Step>

            </Request>

            <Condition>(proxy.pathsuffix MatchesPath "/") and (request.verb = "GET")</Condition>

</Flow>

B.

<Flow name="root">

            <Request>

                <Step>

                    <Name>JS-ExtractVariables</Name>

                </Step>

            </Request>

           <Condition>(proxy.pathsuffix Matches "/") and (request.verb = "GET")</Condition>

</Flow>

I ran the following tests on both flows:

Flow	URI	Trace expression	Trace express result	proxy.pathsuffix
A	https://api-sandbox.apigee.appliedcloudservices.com/examples/	(proxy.pathsuffix matches / and (request.verb equals "GET"))	false	/
A	https://api-sandbox.apigee.appliedcloudservices.com/examples	(proxy.pathsuffix matches / and (request.verb equals "GET"))	true
B	https://api-sandbox.apigee.appliedcloudservices.com/examples	(proxy.pathsuffix matches / and (request.verb equals "GET"))	false
B	https://api-sandbox.apigee.appliedcloudservices.com/examples/	(proxy.pathsuffix matches / and (request.verb equals "GET"))	true	/

Notice that the expression executed/displayed is the same, however, results are different. The operator “Matches” works as expected whereas “MatchesPath” returns true when proxy.pathsuffix is empty and return true when value (“/”) should match. Is there an explanation for this?

[dknezic]

I believe the MatchesPath operator is intended to help with path fragment matching and match against one or multiple paths by using single * or double **

https://docs.apigee.com/api-platform/fundamentals/flow-variables-and-conditions#operators

[ankushprashar]

Thanks @dknezic ! I understand that documented description of it. My question was 

1. Why the expression being evaluated/displayed in trace for MatchesPath and Matches the same?

2. Given that it's same then why are the results different?

[dknezic]

1. You're right, I can reproduce this discrepancy in the trace in both Apigee Edge and Apigee X. I believe this is just a cosmetic issue that it's showing the wrong thing in the case of MatchesPath, will raise this issue.

2. It's not actually the same and I believe you should only use MatchesPath when you're trying to use wildcard matching.