[asterisk-dev] Parsing in Asterisk

[Leif Madsen]

On Tuesday 13 March 2007 13:25:11 Steve Murphy wrote:
> On Mon, 2007-03-12 at 14:33 -0600, Tilghman Lesher wrote:
> > We need a revamp of parsing in Asterisk.  What we have now creates
> > serious problems when writing complex extensions.conf logic.  For
> > example, I recently had to coach someone to write the following in his
> > extensions.conf to make it work correctly:
> >
> > exten => s,n,Set(ODBC_TEST3(foo)=123\,\\"456\,789\\"\,012)
>
> I've had some definite ideas about parsing in Asterisk, and am beginning
> to prototype a new way of going about it. It's mostly for the sake of
> AEL, but some underlying concepts will eventually affect the
> extensions.conf format to a degree.
[snip]
>
> I hope I've explained things clearly. I hope not to cause a firestorm of
> outrage either. If the community objects to these kind of future
> changes, I'll drop it! I promise!

The things you've outlined seem to make a lot of sense, and I think there is 
going to be a certain amount of backlash, but at the same time, I'm finding 
myself writing more and more "applications" in dialplan logic (i.e. I've 
basically simulated Queue's to some degree to create a hunt group with 
different kinds of logic), and anything that will help to speed up large 
dialplans like mine is all the more welcome.

But my concern is that it sounds like a pretty major change, even beyond what 
Tilghman is proposing. Is that perhaps a 2nd stage transition post-1.6? My 
impression is that Tilghman wants to make this change to trunk in the coming 
weeks. I think you were just outlining some ideas that you've had, but if 
parsing is going to change, then I think it's going to be best to make sure 
it only changes once, and not in both 1.6 and 1.8 (or whatever versions they 
happen to change in).

Having gotten into using func_odbc, and dialplan functions quite heavily in my 
dialplan development over the last few months, I've run into the same 
escaping issues, and if something can be done to alleviate the parsing 
problems I've run into, all the better. It would also make it easier to teach 
and write about!

Leif Madsen.