I have a problem with expires headers on javascript files which are generated by PHP..

The website has two types of javascript files. One part is static javascript files and one part is dynamically generated by PHP.

conf without expires headers

Here no expires headers are added to the .js files (All files return HTTP 200)

location / {
    try_files  $uri $uri/ /index.php;
}

location ~ \.php$ {
    include  /var/ini/nginx/fastcgi.conf;
    fastcgi_pass  php;
    fastcgi_param  SCRIPT_FILENAME /var/www/index.php;
}

conf with expires headers

When adding a location for .js files then all dynamically generated files return HTTP 404

location / {
    try_files  $uri $uri/ /index.php;
}

location ~ \.php$ {
    include  /var/ini/nginx/fastcgi.conf;
    fastcgi_pass  php;
    fastcgi_param  SCRIPT_FILENAME /var/www/dyndev.dk/public/secure/index.php;
}

location ~ \.(js|css)$ {
    expires 1y;
    add_header Cache-Control "public";
}

How to handle both the static and dynamically generated .js files with expires headers?

All dynamically genereated javascript files are named *-php.js

File structure

/var/www/public/index.php # All none-static file requests are pointed to index.php
/var/www/public/js/main.js # Static files
/var/www/js-dynamically_generated.php # This file is outside the public www, but is routed by PHP since the file doesn't exists inside the public /js

PHP routing

www.example.com/ -> index.php
www.example.com/js -> static content
www.example.com/js/dynamically_generated-php.js -> js-dynamically_generated.php

For nginx, PHP is never Javascript. Nginx can't distinct between PHP which renders html and PHP which renders javascript (please correct me if I'm wrong).

So the way to go would be either to setup a seperate folder with PHP files which generate all JS (code is not tested!):

location ~ \normal_php/.php$ {
    include  /var/ini/nginx/fastcgi.conf;
    fastcgi_pass  php;
    fastcgi_param  SCRIPT_FILENAME /var/www/dyndev.dk/public/secure/index.php;
}

location ~ \js_php/.php$ {
    expires 1y;
    add_header Cache-Control "public";

    include  /var/ini/nginx/fastcgi.conf;
    fastcgi_pass  php;
    fastcgi_param  SCRIPT_FILENAME /var/www/dyndev.dk/public/secure/index.php;
}

...or send the header with PHP itself:

<?php
header('Expires: '. gmdate('D, d M Y H:i:s \G\M\T', time() + (60 * 60))); // 1 hour