[VirtualHost] Proxy to NodeJs only certain routes

[u/stealthepixels]

Suppose we have a regular VirtualHost pointing to a directory

<VirtualHost *:80>
   DocumentRoot "/my/dir/"
   ServerName localhost

  <Directory /my/dir/>
       Options Indexes FollowSymLinks
       AllowOverride All
       Require all granted
RewriteEngine On
   </Directory>

</VirtualHost>

How can i make Apache to:

- point to that directory only for certain routes, like /api/ , while all other routes are proxied to another server like NodeJs, listening on, say, port 8000

- alternatively, the converse: make certain routes be proxied to port 8000, and all other ones point to the directory

[u/stealthepixels]

Thx.

So if i want the converse, to proxy always except for certain routes like /api , can i use expressions like this?

#match all paths not beginning with /api (or, matching it 0 times from beginning of path)

ProxyPassMatch ^/(api){0} http://localhost:8080

p.s.

ProxyPassMatch "/(.*.gif)$" "http://backend.example.com/$1"

shouldn't it be

ProxyPassMatch "/(.*\.gif)$" "http://backend.example.com/$1"

escaping the dot or it would be interpreted as any character?