copying @null

[Kevin Crist]

We have a transcription system that sometimes has the OBR-27.3 field look like |^^^     |.  One of our recieving fields either needs a date in here or the spaces in the 3rd subfield deleted. Since we dont always know what date to put in there we are deleting them depending on a few criteria. I thought this would be easy but i cant seem to get it to work.

Any help would be appreciated.

Below is a test message: And i have attached my code:

|^~&|TRN|A|sftmed|rcvfac|20100429141337||ORU^R01|100429141337629|D|2.2< 1(0).0(0).PID(0)  :  >|||002303||CULLEN^EDWARD||19920808|M|| ||||||||9000002007< 1(0).0(0).PV1(0)  :  >|||3E^315^1||||||||||||||0097|||||||||||||||||||||||||||20100428< 1(0).1(0).0(0).ORC(0)  :  >|RE|T989960-9000002007-as-9000002007-as^TRN|T989960-9000002007-as^TRN||||||201004291413|DAP< 1(0).1(0).0(0).OBR(0)  :  >||T989960-9000002007-as-9000002007-as^TRN|T989960-9000002007-as^TRN|as^CARDIOTHORACIC CONSULT/HP^TRN|||201004290000|201004291413||||||||||Report|||||||P||^^^     |||||1997< 1(0).1(0).1(0).OBX(0)  :  >|1|TX|as^CARDIOTHORACIC CONSULT/HP^TRN||Report~as

Topic

[Tom Rioux]

Kevin,

From looking at your test message, it appears that field isn’t exactly “null”…it appears to have some spaces in it.   To be sure, you can do a hex dump (hcihd) to see what is in that field.  

Hope that helps…

Tom Rioux

[Kevin Crist]

well, thats kind of what i was thinking but i didnt know the correct name for it. It’s just space in which the sending system says is a value, i just dont know how to go about it.

[Kevin Crist]

i did a hex dump but i am not too smooth at knowing what all of it means.

[Jim Kosloskey]

Kevin,

First it is not following the standard to have any subcomponent, component, or field contain nothing but spaces.

So the real resolution of this issue should be with the sending system.

However, normally (I recall) in the Xlate if you COPY a field from the inbound to the outbound and the field or any of the components (not the subcomponents because at this point the Xlate is subcomponent unaware) that are nothing but spaces go away – thereby following the standard and probably giving you what you want.

However again I am guessing you have BULKCOPY involved and that does not enforce the standard so you get the spaces.

One thing you can try is to simply COPY the field after the BULKCOPY and see if that does not relieve you of the issue.

email: jim.kosloskey@jim-kosloskey.com 30+ years Cloverleaf, 60 years IT – old fart.

[Charlie Bursell]

Maybe I don’t completely understand.  If you want to make sure the whole field is clear then copy date to subfield 3, first clear with PATHCOPY not COPY.  It will get rid of spaces and all subfields

PATHCOPY @null -> OBR.#27

COPY date -> OBR.#27.[2]

[Peter Heggie]

is there a single command that can wipe out all subfields in all occurances of a field? So far I have to iterate through all occurances of a field and PATHCOPY @null to each field occurance.

Peter Heggie
PeterHeggie@crouse.org

[Charlie Bursell]

See my post just before your post

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