Chapter 8. Advanced Dialplan Concepts

In the preceding chapters you learned a bit about the power of the XML configuration files used in FreeSWITCH. Specifically, you learned about Dialplan entries and using XML to set general configuration settings. In this chapter, we will dive deep into the general structure of Dialplan, features of the XML Dialplan processing system, and how you can use what appears to be the very basic features to achieve very complex results.

Some items in this chapter may appear to be repetitive, but we want to go back over some basic Dialplan functionality talked about in the earlier chapters, and be sure we explain the hows and whys of the Dialplan system. It is quite common for people to use the XML Dialplan in FreeSWITCH without really understanding it, hampering efforts to extend the system or debug complex problems. This chapter aims to make you an expert at exactly how and why things operate the way they do within the Dialplan.

In this chapter, we will presume...