blocking script until playback complete

WARNING: this is an automatic post retrieved from the Asterisk-Users Mailing List, not an authored post Mailing-list Collector February 22, 2012 Asterisk-Users 12 Comments

Tags: , , , , ,

Greetings list,

I’ve done AGI scripting before, but in the past I’ve always wanted
control to be returned to the dialplan as soon as possible.

However, today I have a scenario where I want the script to remain
running during the playback of a file so that I can read DTMF at the end
of playback. However, doing this:

GET DATA en_welcome 5000 6

Results (correctly) in the following in the asterisk console:

You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

12 Responses to “blocking script until playback complete”

  1. Zohair Raza said:

    Feb 22, 12 at 10:50 am

    Try passing escape character

    GET DATA $filename $timeout $max_digits $escape_character

    Regards,
    Zohair Raza

    On Wed, Feb 22, 2012 at 6:40 PM, Chris Bagnall
    wrote:

  2. "Danny Nicholas" said:

    Feb 22, 12 at 10:55 am

    You don’t state the Asterisk version you are running, but personal
    experience tells me you’d better invest in some Rogaine if you’re depending
    on the built-in stuff from AGI for DTMF input. I have personally wasted
    weeks trying it.

    [mailto:asterisk-users-bounces@lists.digium.com] On Behalf Of Zohair Raza
    Sent: Wednesday, February 22, 2012 8:50 AM

    Try passing escape character

    GET DATA $filename $timeout $max_digits $escape_character

    Regards,
    Zohair Raza

    On Wed, Feb 22, 2012 at 6:40 PM, Chris Bagnall
    wrote:

    Greetings list,

    I’ve done AGI scripting before, but in the past I’ve always wanted control
    to be returned to the dialplan as soon as possible.

    However, today I have a scenario where I want the script to remain running
    during the playback of a file so that I can read DTMF at the end of
    playback. However, doing this:

    GET DATA en_welcome 5000 6

    Results (correctly) in the following in the asterisk console:

  3. Chris Bagnall said:

    Feb 22, 12 at 11:13 am

    Sorry, should have said, latest 1.4 release.

    Care to elaborate a little on the issues you found when you tried it?

  4. Chris Bagnall said:

    Feb 22, 12 at 11:20 am

    Not sure I follow – according to the docs, there is no parameter
    $escape_character

    The problem seems to be that GET DATA returns control to the script
    before the audio file has even played, let alone any DTMF tones have
    been entered. I would have expected script execution to be blocked until
    the result from GET DATA was available.

  5. Eric Wieling said:

    Feb 22, 12 at 11:22 am

    Are you reading STDIN to initialize your AGI? If not Asterisk may ignore your AGI commands. I recommend using one of the many AGI libs out there.

  6. Chris Bagnall said:

    Feb 22, 12 at 12:21 pm

    Thanks for the suggestion – I tried 50000, but no difference, it’s not
    waiting at _all_ for the playback to complete.

    Just for giggles, I tried exactly the same test on a 1.8 box I have for
    testing, and the same problem occurs.

    I’m sure I must be doing something wrong here :-)

  7. Steve Edwards said:

    Feb 22, 12 at 5:13 pm

    If by ‘remain running’ you mean ‘do other stuff while the file is playing’
    you can stream the file in a separate thread while continuing with the
    ‘mainline’ code.

    If you mean your script is returning to the dialplan before the file is
    finished playing, you’re doing something wrong.

    Sure sounds like you are doing something wrong. Anytime a ‘sleep’ helps,
    something is definitely wrong.

    Most AGI ‘weirdness’ can be traced to violating the AGI protocol. These
    are the most common mistakes:

    0) Not using an established library. Nobody gets it right the first time
    :)

    1) Not reading the AGI environment from STDIN before issuing any AGI
    requests.

    2) Forgetting that every request must be followed by reading the response.

    3) Doing any I/O on STDIN or STDOUT. These channels are connected to
    Asterisk, not any console. Don’t even think about popping in a quick
    ‘debugging printf.’

    Looking over my own AGI code, I don’t see any examples where I used GET
    DATA. I tend to use STREAM FILE and WAIT FOR DIGIT. I’m a 1.2 Luddite, so
    any bugs I’ve been exposed to may have been fixed by now.

  8. Steve Edwards said:

    Feb 22, 12 at 5:25 pm

    Why? Is this ‘extra’ parameter documented in your version of Asterisk?

  9. Steve Edwards said:

    Feb 22, 12 at 5:34 pm

    I’ve written complete ‘applications*’ as single AGIs so the combination of
    STREAM FILE and WAIT FOR DIGIT works reliably for me.

    *) voicemail, chat services, credit card processing, listen to stories,
    blah, blah, blah.

  10. Eric Wieling said:

    Feb 22, 12 at 6:02 pm

    Yes, but it doesn’t seem to indicate if the timeout is in seconds of milliseconds.

  11. "Danny Nicholas" said:

    Feb 22, 12 at 6:09 pm

    While it is never actually safe to assume anything about Asterisk, the
    general setting for seconds is milliseconds.

  12. Zohair Raza said:

    Feb 23, 12 at 4:21 am

    Strange, it’s not there in wiki but phpagi is using this

    * @link http://www.voip-info.org/wiki-get+data
    * @param string $filename file to play. Do not include file extension.
    * @param integer $timeout milliseconds
    * @param integer $max_digits
    * @param char $escape_character
    * @return array, see evaluate for return information. ['result'] holds
    the digits and ['data'] holds the timeout if present.
    *
    * This differs from other commands with return DTMF as numbers
    representing ASCII characters.
    */
    function get_data($filename, $timeout=NULL, $max_digits=NULL,
    $escape_character=NULL)
    {
    return $this->evaluate(rtrim(“GET DATA $filename $timeout $max_digits
    $escape_character”));
    }

    Regards,
    Zohair Raza