Nginx: how do I rewrite a URL subdirectory to a query parameter?

I am trying to rewrite a URL in a WordPress website running Nginx so that the last subdirectory is transformed into GET-parameter:

http://mydomain/property/aid/1234/ to http://mydomain/property/?aid=1234/

I tried with add_rewrite_rule in WordPress, but it didn't work as it didn't create a new $_GET entry.

Then I tried the following Nginx rule:

rewrite ^(/property/.*)/aid/(.*)$ /$1/?aid=$2 break;

which seems to have no effect at all.

Any suggestions?

Suppose the document root is /www/yourproject/public. Then the configuration for PHP-FPM may look like the following:

rewrite "^/property/aid/([0-9]+)$" /property/?aid=$1 break;

location /property/ {
  root            /www/yourproject/public;
  fastcgi_pass    unix:/tmp/php-fpm-yourproject.sock;
  fastcgi_index   index.php;
  include         fastcgi_params;
}

In this configuration, the requests are processed by /www/yourproject/public/property/index.php.

Sample index.php

<?php
var_dump($_GET);

Sample output for /property/aid/1234

array(1) {
  ["aid"]=>
  string(4) "1234"
}

You can replace fastcgi_pass and fastcgi_index directives with a proxy_pass, for instance.