I'm unclear how to mimic the Apache rewrite map using the NginxHttpMapModule.

I've included a map in my nginx.conf file, as so:

===================================
map $uri $new {
default http://www.domain.com/home/;

/aa http://aa.domain.com/;
/bb http://bb.domain.com/;
/john http://my.domain.com/users/john/;
}
===================================

Then have trouble using the map without excuding all other rules in my server configuration. The following rewrites everything, obviously, but couldn't figure out how to get a conditional match wrapped around it or from it:

===================================
server {
listen 80;
server_name some.domain.com;
rewrite ^ $new redirect;

root /var/www/web;
index index.php;

access_log /var/log/httpd/nginx_access_log main;
error_log /var/log/httpd/nginx_error_log;

charset utf-8;

location / {

# If the file exists as a static file serve it directly without
# running all the other rewite tests on it
if (-f $request_filename) {
expires max;
break;
}

if ($request_filename !~ "\.(js|htc|ico|gif|jpg|png|css)$") {
rewrite ^(.*) /index.html last;
}
}
===================================

I'm obviously missing something, but how would one wrap this Map conditionally? If no "map" rules trigger, continue with "locations'...

Is this possible?

Thanks in advance!