Basic Example

Now let's look at a sample pattern. If you wanted to match all four-digit numbers that had the first two digits as six and four, you would create an extension that looks like:

exten => _64XX,1,SayDigits(${EXTEN})

In this example, each X represents a single digit, with any value from zero to nine. 

The above pattern will match the following examples:

• 6400
• 6401
• 6450
• 6499

We're essentially saying "The first digit must be a six, the second digit must be a four, the third digit can be anything from zero to nine, and the fourth digit can be anything from zero to nine".

Complex Examples

Lets use some Character Sets and Wildcards

exten => _64X[4-9],1,SayDigits(${EXTEN})
exten => _[6-4]4[4-9],1,SayDigits(${EXTEN})
exten => _64.,1,SayDigits(${EXTEN})

The first example: The first must be a six, the second digit must be a four, the third digit can be anything from zero to nine, and the fourth digit must be between four and nine

The second example: The first digit must be between six and four, the second digit must be four, the third digit must be between four and nine

The third example: The first digit must be a six, the second digit must be a four, the third digit can be anything at all (including letters), and we will continue to collect digits until the user stops entering digits

Character Sets

If we want to be more specific about a range of numbers, we can put those numbers or number ranges in square brackets to define a character set. For example, what if we wanted the second digit to be either a three or a four? One way would be to create two patterns (_64XX and _63XX), but a more compact method would be to do _6[34]XX. This specifies that the first digit must be a six, the second digit can be either a three or a four, and that the last two digits can be anything from zero to nine.

You can also use ranges within square brackets. For example, [1-468] would match a single digit from one through four or six or eight. It does not match any number from one to four hundred sixty-eight!

Other Special Characters

Within Asterisk patterns, we can also use a couple of other characters to represent ranges of numbers. The period character (.) at the end of a pattern matches one or more remaining characters. You put it at the end of a pattern when you want to match extensions of an indeterminate length. As an example, the pattern _9876. would match any number that began with 9876 and had at least one more character or digit.

The exclamation mark (!) character is similar to the period and matches zero or more remaining characters. It is used in overlap dialing to dial through Asterisk. For example, _9876! would match any number that began with 9876 including 9876, and would respond that the number was complete as soon as there was an unambiguous match.

Order of Pattern Matching

Now let's show what happens when there is more than one pattern that matches the dialed number. How does Asterisk know which pattern to choose as the best match?

Asterisk uses a simple set of rules to sort the extensions and patterns so that the best match is found first. The best match is simply the most specific pattern. The sorting rules are:

1. The dash (-) character is ignored in extensions and patterns except when it is used in a pattern to specify a range in a character set. It has no effect in matching or sorting extensions.
2. Non-pattern extensions are sorted in ASCII sort order before patterns.
3. Patterns are sorted by the most constrained character set per digit first. By most constrained, we mean the pattern that has the fewest possible matches for a digit. As an example, the N character has eight possible matches (two through nine), while X has ten possible matches (zero through nine) so N sorts first.
4. Character sets that have the same number of characters are sorted in ASCII sort order as if the sets were strings of the set characters. As an example, X is 0123456789 and [a-j] is abcdefghij so X sorts first. This sort ordering is important if the character sets overlap as with [0-4] and [4-8].
5. The period (.) wildcard sorts after character sets.
6. The exclamation mark (!) wildcard sorts after the period wildcard.

Let's look at an example to better understand how this works. Let's assume Alice dials extension 6421, and she has the following patterns in her dialplan:

exten => _6XX1,1,SayAlpha(A)
exten => _64XX,1,SayAlpha(B)
exten => _640X,1,SayAlpha(C)
exten => _6.,1,SayAlpha(D)
exten => _64NX,1,SayAlpha(E)
exten => _6[45]NX,1,SayAlpha(F)
exten => _6[34]NX,1,SayAlpha(G)

Can you tell (without reading ahead) which one would match?

Using the sorting rules explained above, the extensions sort as follows:
_640X sorts before _64NX because of rule 3 at position 4. (0 before N)
_64NX sorts before _64XX because of rule 3 at position 4. (N before X)
_64XX sorts before _6[34]NX because of rule 3 at position 3. (4 before [34])
_6[34]NX sorts before _6[45]NX because of rule 4 at position 3. ([34] before [45])
_6[45]NX sorts before _6XX1 because of rule 3 at position 3. ([45] before X)
_6XX1 sorts before _6. because of rule 5 at position 3. (X before .)

exten => _640X,1,SayAlpha(C)
exten => _64NX,1,SayAlpha(E)
exten => _64XX,1,SayAlpha(B)
exten => _6[34]NX,1,SayAlpha(G)
exten => _6[45]NX,1,SayAlpha(F)
exten => _6XX1,1,SayAlpha(A)
exten => _6.,1,SayAlpha(D)

When Alice dials 6421, Asterisk searches through its list of sorted extensions and uses the first matching extension. In this case _64NX is found.

To verify that Asterisk actually does sort the extensions in the manner that we've shown, add the following extensions to the [users] context of your own dialplan.

exten => _6XX1,1,SayAlpha(A)
exten => _64XX,1,SayAlpha(B)
exten => _640X,1,SayAlpha(C)
exten => _6.,1,SayAlpha(D)
exten => _64NX,1,SayAlpha(E)
exten => _6[45]NX,1,SayAlpha(F)
exten => _6[34]NX,1,SayAlpha(G)

Reload the dialplan, and then type dialplan show [email protected] at the Asterisk CLI. Asterisk will show you all extensions that match in the [users] context. If you were to dial extension 6421 in the [users] context the first found extension will execute.

server*CLI> dialplan show [email protected]
[ Context 'users' created by 'pbx_config' ]
  '_64NX' =>        1. SayAlpha(E)                                [pbx_config]
  '_64XX' =>        1. SayAlpha(B)                                [pbx_config]
  '_6[34]NX' =>     1. SayAlpha(G)                                [pbx_config]
  '_6[45]NX' =>     1. SayAlpha(F)                                [pbx_config]
  '_6XX1' =>        1. SayAlpha(A)                                [pbx_config]
  '_6.' =>          1. SayAlpha(D)                                [pbx_config]

-= 6 extensions (6 priorities) in 1 context. =-

server*CLI> dialplan show users
[ Context 'users' created by 'pbx_config' ]
  '_640X' =>        1. SayAlpha(C)                                [pbx_config]
  '_64NX' =>        1. SayAlpha(E)                                [pbx_config]
  '_64XX' =>        1. SayAlpha(B)                                [pbx_config]
  '_6[34]NX' =>     1. SayAlpha(G)                                [pbx_config]
  '_6[45]NX' =>     1. SayAlpha(F)                                [pbx_config]
  '_6XX1' =>        1. SayAlpha(A)                                [pbx_config]
  '_6.' =>          1. SayAlpha(D)                                [pbx_config]

-= 7 extensions (7 priorities) in 1 context. =-

You can dial extension 6421 to try it out on your own.

exten => 6410,1,SayDigits(987)
exten => _641X,1,SayDigits(12345)
exten => _641X,n,SayDigits(54321)

Matching on Caller ID

Within an extension handler, it is also possible to match based upon the Caller ID of the incoming channel by appending a forward slash to the dialed extension or pattern, followed by a Caller ID pattern to be matched. Consider the following example, featuring phones with Caller IDs of 101, 102 and 103.

exten => 306,1,NoOp()
same => n,Background(goodbye)
same => n,Hangup()
 
exten => 306/_101,1,NoOp()
same => n,Background(year)
same => n,Hangup()
 
exten => 306/_102,1,NoOp()
same => n,Background(beep)
same => n,Hangup()

The phone with Caller ID 101, when dialing 306, will hear the prompt "year" and will be hung up.  The phone with Caller ID 102, when dialing 306, will hear the "beep" sound and will be hung up.  The phone with Caller ID 103, or any other caller, when dialing 306, will hear the "goodbye" prompt and will be hung up.

[unexpected-jump-test]

exten => s/_1XX,1,Set(CALLERID(num)=200) ; <- Example call starts here
same  =>        2,Hangup()               ; <- This line is NEVER reached normally because of the assignment above

exten => s/_2XX,1,SayDigits(1)
same  =>        2,SayDigits(2)           ; <- This is where the dialplan proceeds instead
same  =>        3,SayDigits(3)
same  =>        4,SayDigits(4)