Android deeplink path, pathPrefix or pathPattern not working

Issue

I am trying to make Android deeplinking work only for specific urls e.g.:

• https://books.com/book/nice-title-of-a-book
• https://books.com/book/abc-for-dummies

So http://books.com/about keeps linking to the webpage

This configurations in my AndroidManifest.xml works and opens the correct page in my app. The issue is that this matches every page on books.com

<intent-filter>
    <action android:name="android.intent.action.VIEW" />
    <category android:name="android.intent.category.DEFAULT" />
    <category android:name="android.intent.category.BROWSABLE" />
    <data android:scheme="@string/custom_url_scheme" />

    <data android:scheme="https" android:host="books.com" />
</intent-filter>

When I change the data part into:

<data android:scheme="https" android:host="books.com" android:path="/book/nice-book-1" />

or

<data android:scheme="https" android:host="books.com" android:pathPrefix="/book" />

or

<data android:scheme="https" android:host="books.com" android:pathPattern="/book/..*" />

to match only /book followed by a slug, it does not work a all.

I've already found many similar questions on Stackoverflow but they are either quite dated or not handle the situation where an url works with slugs.

• Android Navigation Deep Link - Ignore Query
• Intent filter using path,pathPrefix, or pathPattern
• How to use PathPattern in order to create DeepLink Apps Android?

Does anyone have run into the same issues when matching only a few urls with slugs?

Solution

It took me a very long time to figure this out. So I'll answer my own question to save others precious time.

It turned out that when running an Android app on a device via Android studio

<data android:scheme="https" android:host="books.com" />

Is the only path that will work.

When using:

<data android:scheme="https" android:host="books.com" android:path="/book/nice-book-1" />

or

<data android:scheme="https" android:host="books.com" android:pathPrefix="/book" />

These will only work when using a SIGNED version of the app on your device. This probably because in your assetlinks.json there is a sha256_cert_fingerprints which can only be verified when a signed app is used.

Answered By - Bas van Dijk