Chapter 7. Building IVR Applications with Lua

In the previous chapter, we discussed the basics of building Interactive Voice Response (IVR) applications using the built-in XML IVR engine. The XML IVR engine is useful for building simple IVR applications that are relatively static in nature. FreeSWITCH has other ways of building IVR applications that are more flexible and powerful than the built-in XML IVR engine. One way is by utilizing the various scripting languages that have been integrated into FreeSWITCH. FreeSWITCH supports the following scripting languages for building voice applications:

• JavaScript

• Lua

• Perl

Any of the preceding languages can be used for building IVR applications. In this chapter we will focus on using Lua, a lightweight scripting language that is designed to be embedded within other projects. (A famous example of which is World of Warcraft.)

Note

Each of the scripting languages has its own advantages and drawbacks. Lua is a good choice because it is fast, scalable, and...