[asterisk-users] AEL and swap from macros to contexts

Tue Oct 7 06:33:31 CDT 2008

On Tue, Oct 7, 2008 at 2:20 PM, Pavel Jezek <pavel.jezek at i.cz> wrote:
>
>
> Atis Lezdins wrote:
>> On Tue, Oct 7, 2008 at 8:45 AM, Pavel Jezek <pavel.jezek at i.cz> wrote:
>>
>>> Steve Murphy wrote:
>>>
>>>> On Mon, 2008-10-06 at 18:25 +0200, Pavel Jezek wrote:
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>> Atis Lezdins wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>> On Mon, Oct 6, 2008 at 5:21 PM, Pavel Jezek <pavel.jezek at i.cz> wrote:
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Hi, according to discussion on asterisk IRC, where people said, that
>>>>>>> macros will be depracated, I tried to migrate from macros to contexts
>>>>>>> and Gosub
>>>>>>> but if I try to use gosub in extensions.ael, ael compiler complains,
>>>>>>> that I shouln't use Gosub app,
>>>>>>> but I can't find ael keyword, that will be Gosub equivalent, or can I
>>>>>>> ignore this ael warnings? thanks
>>>>>>> PJ
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> LOG: lev:3 file:pval.c  line:2521 func: check_pval_item  Warning: file
>>>>>>> /etc/asterisk/extensions.ael, line 36-36: application call to Gosub
>>>>>>> affects flow of control, and needs to be re-written using AEL if, while,
>>>>>>> goto, etc. keywords instead!
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>> Hi,
>>>>>>
>>>>>> In definition use:
>>>>>>
>>>>>> macro set_record(A,B) {
>>>>>>   // do something
>>>>>> }
>>>>>>
>>>>>> And for calling:
>>>>>>
>>>>>> &set_record(${CALLERID(NUM)},${EXTEN});
>>>>>>
>>>>>> It will automatically be translated to GoSub in 1.6, but will remain
>>>>>> as Macro in 1.4.
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>> yes, I know, but I hear on IRC, that macros will be deprecated and
>>>>> suggestion was to move to contexts,
>>>>> personaly I would like also move away from macros, because macros have
>>>>> some limitations, eg. variable number of arguments isn't possible with
>>>>> classic macros,
>>>>> macros also require variable to be defined in macro definition (that is
>>>>> needless, because I'm referecing to ARG1, ARG2 etc. inside macros)
>>>>> so I definitively agree with moving from macros to contexts, only one
>>>>> bad thing is compiler warning, when I try to Gosub to context (as macro
>>>>> replacement)
>>>>> PJ
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>> Pavel--
>>>>
>>>> Yes, you can ignore the warnings and go ahead and hardcoded gosub calls
>>>> into your source. I didn't upgrade 1.4 to use gosub-instead-of-macro
>>>> because
>>>> the key element ended up being "calling gosub with arguments", which
>>>> didn't
>>>> make it into 1.4.
>>>>
>>>> Someday, when you upgrade from 1.4 to 1.6, you will have to change
>>>> all your gosub's to use the argument passing feature, if you hardcode
>>>> gosubs now. Or, you can backport the gosub-with-arguments feature to
>>>> 1.4,
>>>> and use 1.6 AEL to compile... which will give you some future
>>>> portability
>>>> when you do move to 1.6...
>>>>
>>>> Sorry to make simple things sound so complicated!
>>>>
>>>> murf
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>> murf, thank you for clear answer,
>>> currently, I'm using asterisk trunk (and 1.6 also),
>>> do you plan to remove quite confusing AEL warnings, that appears, when I
>>> try to hardcode Gosub with arguments into ael dialplan?
>>>
>>
>> Why would you still want to hardcode them?
>>
> because I would like to move completely away from using classic macros,
> because it have some limitations, as I said, variable number of
> arguments passed to macro is example,
> so I moving from macros to contexts that do the same functionality and
> haven't limitations that macros have
> and if I will have only contexts in ael dialplan I must call it with
> Gosub (I can't call context using &)

I think you didn't understood, that declaring "macro x" and calling it
with &x() would make AEL parser to do it for you. They are called
"macro" just in AEL, but internally they are GoSub's. Additionally you
will be ready for any other future changes.

For example You can use
$aelparse -d -n -w -q extensions.ael

and take a look at generated .conf file. In 1.6.0 it would be:

[set-record]
exten => s,1,Set(LOCAL(A)=${ARG1})
exten => s,2,Set(LOCAL(B)=${ARG2})
...
exten => s,20,Return()

And call to it:
Gosub(set_record,s,1(${CALLERID(num)},${EXTEN}))

Regards,
Atis

> PJ
>
>> Please see above sample, you can use prefixing with "and"  (&).
>>
>
>> Regards,
>> Atis.
>>
>>
>>> PJ
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>>>> Regards,
>>>>>> Atis
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
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>>
>>
>>
>>
>
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-- 
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