The AMI waits for queries at

. Packet fields are tacked on the end of the URL. Try these addresses in your web browser:

The response follows in the form of an HTML page, so it's not really suitable for access via a script.

If we replace manager in the URL with rawman , we get plain text output. To log in and get a message count from the mailbox, then:

        Response: Success
Message: Authentication accepted

      

        Response: Success
Message: Mailbox Message Count
Mailbox: 123
NewMessages: 0
OldMessages: 0

      

        Response: Goodbye
Message: Thanks for all the fish.

      

This text output is more script-friendly.

If we want XML instead, we call mxml instead. The XML output is presented formatted for better readability. In practice, AJAM does not put line breaks inside the XML tags. Either way, a compliant XML parser won't care.

        <ajax-response>
    <response type='object' id='unknown'>
        <generic
            response='Success'
            message='Authentication accepted' />
    </response>
</ajax-response>

      

        <ajax-response>
    <response type='object' id='unknown'>
        <generic
            response='Success'
            message='Mailbox Message Count'
            mailbox='123'
            newmessages='0'
            oldmessages='0' />
    </response>
</ajax-response>

      

        <ajax-response>
    <response type='object' id='unknown'>
        <generic
            response='Goodbye'
            message='Thanks for all the fish.' />
    </response>
</ajax-response>

      

AJAX applications - as the name "Asynchronous JavaScript and XML" might suggest - use XML as the standard format, even though it is often criticized for its bloated structure. There are alternatives, such as JSON ^{[ 42 ]} , for example. JSON (JavaScript Object Notation) is - the name gives it away - well-suited for Javascript applications, because the data structure can be converted into an object natively and with little overhead using eval() . There are countless implementations for PHP, Perl, etc. but a JSON implementation for AJAM does not yet exist. One can, however, convert the plain-text output into JSON on the client side, if that turns out to be easier or if it's easily done using available Javascript libraries. Here's an example to get you thinking:

        // We assume the received response and
// simulate it here:
var responseText = 'Response: Success/n'
+'Message: Mailbox Message Count/n'
+'Mailbox: 123/n'
+'NewMessages: 0/n'
+'OldMessages: 0/n';

// Escape single quotation marks:
responseText = responseText.replace( //'/g, "http://'" );
// Wrap fields in quotes:
responseText = responseText.replace( /^([a-z/d]*):/s*(.*)/gmi, "'$1':'$2
'," );
// Convert to object:
eval('var packet = {'+ responseText +'}');

// Now you can access the fields as you would with any object:
alert( packet['NewMessages'] );   // returns "0"

      

When accessing the AJAM with an AJAX application, the ping command is particularly useful for keeping authenticated connections alive.

        Response: Pong

      

A small sample application demonstrating AJAX access may be run at

. This uses the highly practical JavaScript library prototype ^{[ 43 ]} for AJAX access and displays, using the Status the currently active channels. You can use the AJAM demo as a basis for your own AJAX applications.

The Asterisk web server is a minimal implementation and cannot be seen as a wholesale replacement for a "proper" web server that can run PHP scripts or use modules, such as Apache. To unify a system that uses both, you can use Apache as a proxy for AJAM by adding

        ProxyPass /ajam http://localhost:8088/asterisk
      

in the appropriate place in httpd.conf , so that all requests for /ajam are passed on to AJAM instead of being served by Apache.