Xlate Copy statement field format

It’s just a little shortcut. Sometimes it’s a lot easier to to find the 44th field in the segment rather than scanning all the fields looking for the one that uses 09876.

I’m uncertain if the field notaiton is documented, but I’ve been using it for since I can remember.

Gotham is the first person that showed it to me, so let me say thanks.

I like it especially if the vendor decides to change versions of HL7 from 2.2 to say 2.3 then the XLATE will probably work without much change.

If you used the HL7 item numbers in the path then you’ve got alot of changes to make.

Not to mention most people use the field notation in everyday conversation so screen shots or Xlate snippets make much more sense to them.

I must say this is a point that Jim Kosloskey and I have opposite preferences on.

Jim has told me he likes the item number because that is what is displayed by the testing tool and that makes it easier for him to identify the same item in the Xlate.

It is true that when using the field notation in the Xlate, there is some mental effort necessary to figure out which item in the Xlate is the same thing in the tester, but I still have a preference for the field number notation.

By the way, the field notation has worked for all levels of granulaity I’ve encountered.

Here is an example of using the field notation for some subfileds:

=ROSS -> 0(0).PID.#5.[0]

=K -> 0(0).PID.#5.[1]

=Russ -> 0(0).PID.#5.[2]

The notation also works in TCL procs that use GRM and XPM functions.

In CL 5.5 you will be able to add by field number when yo select a field

FWIW, the field number has been available since early Cloverleaf

Is this valid?

=ROSS -> 0(0).PID.#5.#1

=K -> 0(0).PID.#5.#2

=Russ -> 0(0).PID.#5.#3

No.  Change like this:

=ROSS -> 0(0).PID.#5.[1]

=K -> 0(0).PID.#5.[2]

=Russ -> 0(0).PID.#5.[3]

Remember though taht the numbers within the [] are zero-based

I came across this situation while working on a new Xlate and was wondering if I

“Given the field OBR.#15 containing |A^B^C^D&E^F^G|”

First of all, I’m assuming you aren’t using BULKCOPY. I’ve played around with this some and the only way I could get the outbound to appear the same as the inbound was to copy each piece individually as follows:

OBR.#15.[0]—> OBR.#15[0]    # gives you the “A”

OBR.#15.[1]—> OBR.#15[1]    # gives you the “B”

OBR.#15.[2]—> OBR.#15[2]    # gives you the “C”

OBR.#15.[3].[0]—> OBR.#15.[3].[0]    # gives you the “D” as the first piece of the subfield.

OBR.#15.[3].[1]—> OBR.#15.[3].[1]    # gives you the “E” as the second piece of the subfield.

OBR.#15.[4]—> OBR.#15.[4]    # gives you the “F”

OBR.#15.[5]—> OBR.#15.[5]    # gives you the “G”

The OBR.#15.[3].[1] will allow you to access only the “E”, in case you wanted to do something different with it.

Thanks…Tom

For a field which I know may contain “&” as a part of the data, I have also used a pre-proc.  Here is an example from the PID-11 address line component:

 COPY PID#11(0)[0] -> PID#11(0)[0]

pre-proc

 set outVal [join $xlateInVals “&”]

 set xlateOutVals

I am a relative newcomer to Cloverleaf, so if there is some reason not to do this, I welcome the comments/opinions/corrections.

Thanks