The Cloudflare Rules language supports comparison and logical operators:
true
.Grouping symbols allow you to organize expressions, enforce precedence, and nest expressions.
Comparison operators return true
when a value from an HTTP request matches a value defined in an expression.
This is the general pattern for using comparison operators:
<field> <comparison_operator> <value>
The Rules language supports these comparison operators:
Name Operator Notation Supported Data Types English C-like String1 IP Number Example (operator in bold) Equaleq
==
â
â
â
http.request.uri.path eq "/articles/2008/"
Not equal ne
!=
â
â
â
ip.src ne 203.0.113.0
Less than lt
<
â
â â
cf.waf.score lt 10
Less than
le
<=
â
â â
cf.waf.score le 20
Greater than gt
>
â
â â
cf.waf.score gt 25
Greater than
ge
>=
â
â â
cf.waf.score ge 60
Contains contains
â
â â http.request.uri.path contains "/articles/"
Wildcard
wildcard
â
â â http.request.uri.path wildcard "/articles/*"
Strict wildcard
strict wildcard
â
â â http.request.uri.path strict wildcard "/AdminTeam/*"
Matchesmatches
~
â
â â http.request.uri.path matches "^/articles/200[7-8]/$"
Is in set of values / list3 in
â
â
â
ip.src in { 203.0.113.0 203.0.113.1 }
ip.src.asnum in $<LIST>
1 All string operators are case-sensitive unless explicitly stated as case-insensitive, such as the wildcard
operator.
2 Access to the matches
operator requires a Cloudflare Business or Enterprise plan.
3 Currently, not all Cloudflare products support lists in their expressions. For more information on lists, refer to Inline lists and Lists.
Warning
Comparison operators entered using English notation (such as eq
, lt
, and gt
) must be written in lowercase.
The Cloudflare dashboard may show the following additional operators, depending on the exact field and the type of rule:
starts with (corresponding to the starts_with()
function): Returns true
when a string starts with a given substring, and false
otherwise.
ends with (corresponding to the ends_with()
function): Returns true
when a string ends with a given substring, and false
otherwise.
is in list (corresponding to <FIELD> in $<LIST_NAME>
): Returns true
when the field value is present in the specified list, and false
otherwise. For more information, refer to Use lists in expressions.
is not in list (corresponding to not <FIELD> in $<LIST_NAME>
): Returns true
when the field value is not present in the specified list, and false
otherwise. For more information, refer to Use lists in expressions.
Note
When writing your own custom expressions, you must use the starts_with()
and ends_with()
functions in function calls, not as operators. For example:
# Valid function call
ends_with(http.request.uri.path, ".html")
# Invalid use of ends_with function
http.request.uri.path ends_with ".html"
String comparison in rule expressions is case-sensitive. To account for possible variations of string capitalization in an expression, you can use the lower()
function and compare the result with a lowercased string, like in the following example:
lower(http.request.uri.path) contains "/wp-login.php"
Wildcard matching is only supported with the wildcard
and strict wildcard
operators, and regular expression matching is only supported with the matches
operator.
The wildcard
operator performs a case-insensitive match between a field value and a literal string containing zero or more *
metacharacters. Each *
metacharacter represents zero or more characters. The strict wildcard
operator performs a similar match, but is case-sensitive.
When using the wildcard
/strict wildcard
operator, the entire field value must match the literal string with wildcards (the literal after the operator).
# The following expression:
http.request.full_uri wildcard "http*://example.com/a/*"
# Would match the following URIs:
# - https://example.com/a/ (the '*' matches zero characters)
# - http://example.com/a/
# - https://example.com/a/page.html
# - https://example.com/a/sub/folder/?name=value
# Would NOT match the following URIs:
# - https://example.com/ab/
# - https://example.com/b/page.html
# - https://sub.example.com/a/
Example B
# The following expression:
http.request.full_uri wildcard "*.example.com/*/page.html"
# Would match the following URIs:
# - http://sub.example.com/folder/page.html
# - https://admin.example.com/team/page.html
# - https://admin.example.com/team/subteam/page.html
# Would NOT match the following URIs:
# - https://example.com/ab/page.html ('*.example.com' matches only subdomains)
# - https://sub.example.com/folder2/page.html?s=value (http.request.full_uri includes the query string and its full value does not match)
# - https://sub.example.com/a/ ('page.html' is missing)
Example C
# The following expression:
http.request.full_uri wildcard "*.example.com/*" or http.request.full_uri wildcard "http*://example.com/*"
# Would match the following URIs:
# - https://example.com/folder/list.htm
# - https://admin.example.com/folder/team/app1/
# - https://admin.example.com/folder/team/app1/?s=foobar
The matching algorithm used by the wildcard
operator is case-insensitive. To perform case-sensitive wildcard matching, use the strict wildcard
operator.
To enter a literal *
character in a literal string with wildcards you must escape it using \*
. Additionally, you must also escape \
using \\
. Two unescaped *
characters in a row (**
) in a wildcard literal string are considered invalid and cannot be used. If you need to perform character escaping, it is recommended that you use the raw string syntax to specify a literal string with wildcards.
Wildcard matching versus regex matching
The wildcard
/strict wildcard
operators always consider the entire field value (left-side operand) when determining if there is a match. The matches
operator can match a partial value.
Customers on Business and Enterprise plans have access to the matches
operator. Regular expression matching is performed using the Rust regular expression engine.
If you are using a regular expression, you can test it using a tool like Regular Expressions 101 â or Rustexp â.
For more information on regular expressions, refer to String values and regular expressions.
Logical operators combine two or more expressions into a single compound expression. A compound expression has this general syntax:
<expression> <logical_operator> <expression>
Supported logical operators
Each logical operator has an order of precedence. The order of precedence (along with grouping symbols) determines the order in which Cloudflare evaluates logical operators in an expression. The not
operator ranks first in order of precedence.
not
!
not ( http.host eq "wwwâ.cloudflareâ.com" and ip.src in {203.0.113.0/24} )
1 Logical AND and
&&
http.host eq "wwwâ.cloudflareâ.com" and ip.src in {203.0.113.0/24}
2 Logical XOR
xor
^^
http.host eq "wwwâ.cloudflareâ.com" xor ip.src in {203.0.113.0/24}
3 Logical OR or
||
http.host eq "wwwâ.cloudflareâ.com" or ip.src in 203.0.113.0/24
4
Warning
Logical operators entered using English notation (such as not
, and
, and or
) must be written in lowercase.
When writing compound expressions, it is important to be aware of the precedence of logical operators so that your expression is evaluated the way you expect.
For example, consider the following generic expression, which uses and
and or
operators:
Expression1 and Expression2 or Expression3
If these operators had no order of precedence, it would not be clear which of two interpretations is correct:
Since the logical and
operator has precedence over logical or
, the and
operator must be evaluated first. Interpretation 1 is correct.
To avoid ambiguity when working with logical operators, use grouping symbols so that the order of evaluation is explicit.
The Rules language supports parentheses ((
,)
) as grouping symbols. Grouping symbols allow you to organize expressions, enforce precedence, and nest expressions.
Only the Expression Editor and the Cloudflare API support grouping symbols. The Expression Builder does not.
Use parentheses to explicitly group expressions that should be evaluated together. In this example, the parentheses do not alter the evaluation of the expression, but they unambiguously call out which logical operators to evaluate first.
(Expression1 and Expression2) or Expression3
Because grouping symbols are so explicit, you are less likely to make errors when you use them to write compound expressions.
Grouping symbols are a powerful tool to enforce precedence for grouped elements of a compound expression. In this example, parentheses force the logical or
operator to be evaluated before the logical and
:
Expression1 and (Expression2 or Expression3)
Without parentheses, the logical and
operator would take precedence.
You can nest expressions grouped by parentheses inside other groups to create very precise, sophisticated expressions, such as this example for a rule designed to block access to a domain:
(
(http.host eq "api.example.com" and http.request.uri.path eq "/api/v2/auth") or
(http.host matches "^(www|store|blog)\.example\.com" and http.request.uri.path contains "wp-login.php") or
ip.src.country in {"CN" "TH" "US" "ID" "KR" "MY" "IT" "SG" "GB"} or ip.src.asnum in {12345 54321 11111}
) and not ip.src in {11.22.33.0/24}
Note that when evaluating the precedence of logical operators, parentheses inside strings delimited by quotes are ignored, such as those in the following regular expression, drawn from the example above:
"^(www|store|blog)\.example\.com"
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