Match URIs with <data> like http://example.com/something in AndroidManifest

Question

I am struggling with the <data> element in the AndroidManifest.xml file to get my URI matching working. I want to match the following URIs:

• http://example.com/something
• http://example.com/foo
• http://example.com/foo/

but not

• http://example.com
• http://example.com/
• http://example.com/something/else

I got it mostly working with

<data android:scheme="http"
      android:host="example.com"
      android:pathPattern="/..*" />

<data android:pathPattern="/..*/" />

but it still matches http://example.com/something/else.

How can I exclude these?

Answer 1

Unfortunately the wildcards that can be used for the pathPattern tag are very limited and what you want is currently impossible through pure xml.

This is because once you accept "/.*" everything gets accepted (that include slashes). And since we can't provide data tags that are NOT to be accepted the only way is to check the data inside of your activity. Here's how to accomplish what you are up to:

@Override
protected void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) {
    super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);

    Uri data = getIntent().getData();

    Log.d("URI", "Received data: " + data);
    String path = data.getPath();

    // Match only path "/*" with an optional "/" in the end.
    // * to skip forward, backward slashes and spaces
    Pattern pattern = Pattern.compile("^/[^\\\\/\\s]+/?$");
    Matcher matcher = pattern.matcher(path);
    if (!matcher.find()) {
        Log.e("URI", "Incorrect data received!");
        finish();
        return;
    }

    // After the check we can show the content and do normal stuff
    setContentView(R.layout.activity_main);

    // Do something when received path data is OK
}

Activity inside the manifest would look like this:

<activity
    android:name=".MainActivity"
    android:label="@string/app_name">
    <intent-filter>
        <action android:name="android.intent.action.VIEW" />
        <category android:name="android.intent.category.DEFAULT" />
        <data android:scheme="http"
              android:host="example.com"
            android:pathPattern="/.*"/>
    </intent-filter>
</activity>

If you don't want your activity to check if the data is correct you will have to change your requirements.

Answer 2

Unless you have very many possible variations of paths you want to catch, just declare all of them explicitly (using path and pathPrefix) to avoid too-broad patterns.

<data android:scheme="http" android:host="example.com" android:path="/something" />
<data android:scheme="http" android:host="example.com" android:pathPrefix="/foo" />