Format Command in an xlate tcl fragment %-40s

[Lawrence Nelson]

In an XLATE –

I’m passing a variable that could be 2 to 35 characters long > outbound to OBX:3.0

I need OBX:30.0 to be 40 characters long everytime regardless of the variable length

In the xlate COPY action – I’m using this tcl frag which has no effect on the output.

set xlateOutVals [format %-40s $xlateInVals ]

Any thoughts on what I’m doing wrong or missing?

• This topic was modified 5 years, 6 months ago by Rob Abbott.

Lawrence Nelson
System Architect - MaineHealth IT

Topic

[Rob Abbott]

Moved this out of the archives to active forums.

The leading or trailing spaces may be being truncated when the data is encoded to HL7. Try surrounding the format in double quotes:

set xlateOutVals “[format %-40s $xlateInVals]”

Rob Abbott
Cloverleaf Emeritus

[Lawrence Nelson]

I added this and found no change –

set xlateOutVals “[format %-20s $xlateInVals %-40s ]”

Lawrence Nelson
System Architect - MaineHealth IT

[Lawrence Nelson]

Sorry wrong example – should’ve been this

set xlateOutVals “[format %-40s $xlateInVals]”

Lawrence Nelson
System Architect - MaineHealth IT

[Rob Abbott]

the leading / trailing spaces are being truncated when the data is encoded to HL7. Please open a support case to investigate this further.

Rob Abbott
Cloverleaf Emeritus

[James Nelson]

This works:
set xlateOutVals

]]

• This reply was modified 5 years, 6 months ago by James Nelson.
• This reply was modified 5 years, 6 months ago by James Nelson.
• This reply was modified 5 years, 6 months ago by James Nelson.
• This reply was modified 5 years, 6 months ago by James Nelson.
• This reply was modified 5 years, 6 months ago by James Nelson.

[James Nelson]

Forget it…

• This reply was modified 5 years, 6 months ago by James Nelson. Reason: Forum software keeps mangling my code

[Lawrence Nelson]

This actually does work – but not the way I want

set xlateOutVals [format “%040s” $xlateInVals ]

Where in “%040s” the zero betweent the percent and the 4 pads out zeros’

Which results in
>||ST|0000000000000000000000000000Levofloxacin|2|

So the current issue is that a space or the – character should do the same thing with spacing (so it would be right justified and that does not appear to be honored in the scheme of things.

Lawrence Nelson
System Architect - MaineHealth IT

[James Nelson]

Ok, trying again

This code snippet works:
[code]
set xlateOutVals [list [format %-40s [lindex $xlateOutVals 0]]]
[/code]

You can validate it with this:
[code]
hcitcl>set xlateOutVals [list abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz]
abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz
hcitcl>set xlateOutVals [list [format %-40s [lindex $xlateOutVals 0]]]
{abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz }
hcitcl>string length [lindex $xlateOutVals 0]
40
hcitcl>
[/code]

If that still doesn’t work in your Xlate, make sure your variant allows for 40 characters in that field/component.

• This reply was modified 5 years, 6 months ago by James Nelson.
• This reply was modified 5 years, 6 months ago by James Nelson.

[Lawrence Nelson]

Ok – so in case anyone else looks at this –

I did get this to work with an xltp instead

*********************************************************************************************

######################################################################
# Name: format_OBX3
# Purpose: <description>
# UPoC type: xltp
######################################################################

proc format_OBX3 {} {
upvar xlateId xlateId \
xlateInList xlateInList \
xlateInTypes xlateInTypes \
xlateInVals xlateInVals \
xlateOutList xlateOutList \
xlateOutTypes xlateOutTypes \
xlateOutVals xlateOutVals \
xlateConstType xlateConstType \
xlateConfigFileName xlateConfigFileName

set inVal [lindex $xlateInVals 0]
set outVal “”
set outVal [ format %-40s $inVal ]

set xlateOutVals

Lawrence Nelson
System Architect - MaineHealth IT

[Lawrence Nelson]

An also confirming Rob’s work – this works as well

set xlateOutVals

]]

1(0).1(2).3(0).OBX(0) : >||ST|Ampicillin |2|S|mcg/mL||0|||F||||C<
1(0).1(2).3(0).OBX(1) : >||ST|Gentamicin |2|S|mcg/mL||0|||F||||C<
1(0).1(2).3(0).OBX(2) : >||ST|Levofloxacin |2|S|mcg/mL||0|||F||||C<
1(0).1(2).3(0).OBX(3) : >||ST|Moxifloxacin |2|R|mcg/mL||2|||F||||C<
1(0).1(2).3(0).OBX(4) : >||ST|Nitrofurantoin |2|R|mcg/mL||2|||F||||C<
1(0).1(2).3(0).OBX(5) : >||ST|Oxacillin |2|R|mcg/mL||2|||F||||C<
1(0).1(2).3(0).OBX(6) : >||ST|Penicillin |2|R|mcg/mL||2|||F||||C<
1(0).1(2).3(0).OBX(7) : >||ST|Quinupristin+Dalfopristin |2|R|mcg/mL||2|||F||||C<
1(0).1(2).3(0).OBX(8) : >||ST|Rifampin |2|R|mcg/mL||2|||F||||C<
1(0).1(2).3(0).OBX(9) : >||ST|Tetracycline |2|R|mcg/mL||2|||F||||C<
1(0).1(2).3(0).OBX(10) : >||ST|Trimethoprim+Sulfamethoxazole |2|R|mcg/mL||2|||F||||C<
1(0).1(2).3(0).OBX(11) : >||ST|Vancomycin

Lawrence Nelson
System Architect - MaineHealth IT

[Jim Kosloskey]

Just wondering if the STRING Action xlateStrPadLeft function would not work as well thus no Tcl coding needed?

email: jim.kosloskey@jim-kosloskey.com 29+ years Cloverleaf, 59 years IT - old fart.

[Rob Abbott]

James – when you post code put it in angle bracket “code” tags, that should protect you from any BBCode formatting.

Rob Abbott
Cloverleaf Emeritus

[James Nelson]

Thanks, Rob! I did finally figure that out. I was trying to use the CODE button on the Forum page to do that and obviously that didn’t work. 🙂

[Author]

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