code: public PathMatcher excludeBranch(final String path) {
          validatePath(path);
          excludedPatterns.add(Pattern.compile("^" + path + "(/.*)?$"));
          return this;
      }
docs: Convenience method for excluding all paths starting with a prefix e.g. "/foo" would exclude "/foo", "/foo/bar", etc.
  
  @param path the prefix for the paths to be excluded
  @return this path matcher