I have converted most of my Apache HTTPd mod_rewrite rules over to nginx's HttpRewrite module (which calls PHP-FPM via FastCGI on every dynamic request). Simple rules which are defined by hard locations work fine:

location = /favicon.ico { rewrite ^(.*)$ /_core/frontend.php?type=ico&file=include__favicon last; }

I am still having trouble with regular expressions, which are parsed in mod_rewrite like this (note that I am accepting trailing slashes within the rules, as well as appending the query string to every request):

mod_rewrite

# File handler
RewriteRule ^([a-z0-9-_,+=]+)\.([a-z]+)$ _core/frontend.php?type=$2&file=$1 [QSA,L]

# Page handler
RewriteRule ^([a-z0-9-_,+=]+)$   _core/frontend.php?route=$1 [QSA,L]
RewriteRule ^([a-z0-9-_,+=]+)\/$ _core/frontend.php?route=$1 [QSA,L]

RewriteRule ^([a-z0-9-_,+=]+)\/([a-z0-9-_,+=]+)$   _core/frontend.php?route=$1/$2 [QSA,L]
RewriteRule ^([a-z0-9-_,+=]+)\/([a-z0-9-_,+=]+)\/$ _core/frontend.php?route=$1/$2 [QSA,L]

RewriteRule ^([a-z0-9-_,+=]+)\/([a-z0-9-_,+=]+)\/([a-z0-9-_,+=]+)$   _core/frontend.php?route=$1/$2/$3 [QSA,L]
RewriteRule ^([a-z0-9-_,+=]+)\/([a-z0-9-_,+=]+)\/([a-z0-9-_,+=]+)\/$ _core/frontend.php?route=$1/$2/$3 [QSA,L]

I have come up with the following server configuration for the site, but I am met with unmatched rules after parsing a request (eg; GET /user/auth):

attempted nginx rewrite

location / {
    # File handler
    rewrite ^([a-z0-9-_,+=]+)\.([a-z]+)?(.*)$                                /_core/frontend.php?type=$2&file=$1&$3 break;

    # Page handler
    rewrite ^([a-z0-9-_,+=]+)(\/*)?(.*)$                                     /_core/frontend.php?route=$1&$2        break;
    rewrite ^([a-z0-9-_,+=]+)\/([a-z0-9-_,+=]+)(\/*)?(.*)$                   /_core/frontend.php?route=$1/$2&$3     break;
    rewrite ^([a-z0-9-_,+=]+)\/([a-z0-9-_,+=]+)\/([a-z0-9-_,+=]+)(\/*)?(.*)$ /_core/frontend.php?route=$1/$2/$3&$4  break;
}

What would you suggest for dealing with my File Handler (which is just filename.ext), and my Page Handler (which is a unique route request with up to 3 properties defined by a forward slash)?

As I haven't gotten a response from this yet, I am also unsure if this will override my PHP parser which is defined with location ~ \.php {}, which is included before these rewrite rules.

Bonus points if I can solve the parsing issues without the need to use a new rule for each number of route properties.