6. Asterisk Extension Language
As of version 1.4, Asterisk offers two ways of composing the dialplan: the traditional extensions.conf format, and the newer AEL, or Asterisk Extension Language, which uses the filename extensions.ael.
AEL will be of particular interest to those Asterisk users who find large extensions.conf files difficult to read. AEL looks more like a real scripting language. They are not mutually exclusive, either. It’s possible to use both, defining contexts in one or the other file. If both files are present, extensions.conf will just overwrite identical portions of extensions.ael when the dialplan is loaded.
Asterisk comes packaged with a command-line utility for converting AEL files into the traditional extensions.conf
Get Practical Asterisk 1.4 and 1.6: From Beginner to Expert now with the O’Reilly learning platform.
O’Reilly members experience books, live events, courses curated by job role, and more from O’Reilly and nearly 200 top publishers.
