Android Pathpattern !exclusive! May 2026

In this article, we’ll break down how PathPattern works, when to use it, and how to avoid its most common pitfalls. PathPattern is an attribute used within an intent filter’s <data> tag. It allows you to match a subset of a URL’s path using simple wildcard expressions.

<!-- Wrong --> <data android:pathPattern="user/*" /> <!-- Correct --> <data android:pathPattern="/user/*" /> Unlike regex .* , pathPattern ’s * requires at least one character. For example: android pathpattern

In most regex engines, * means "zero or more of the previous character". But in PathPattern , the * acts like a greedy wildcard that matches any sequence of characters . In this article, we’ll break down how PathPattern