Is it even possible to remove backslashes in an HL7 xlate?

[Vince Angulo]

We are CIS 5.7R1 on AIX.

I’m probably just making this too hard.  Trying to copy the free-text Chief Complaint from the appropriate DG1 component to PV2-3 where Cerner likes to see it as the Reason For Visit and remove a creative user’s backslash…

xlateInVals = SOME PHRASE LIKE THIS

using the COPY pre-proc of

regsub -all {\} $xlateInVals {} xlateOutVals

xlateOutVals = SOME

Okay, I’ve commited the cardinal Cloverleaf sin of not treating xlateInVals as a list…so I change to

regsub -all {\}

{} xlateOutVals

xlateOutVals = SOME PHRASE LIKE THIS

Ta-da!  Well, not quite mon hombre…When testing

xlateInVals = SOME PHRASE LIKE THIS or,

xlateInVals = SOME PHRASE LIKE THIS

without the backslash or with it elsewhere than the end, I get

xlateOutVals = {SOME PHRASE LIKE THIS}

with those pesky curly braces.  I tried using string map and got strange  results too:

set xlateOutVals [string map {{\} {}}

]

SOME PHRASE LIKE THIS => {SOME PHRASE LIKE THIS}

SOME PHRASE LIKE THIS => {SOME PHRASE LIKE THIS}

and my favorite, the original culprit:

SOME PHRASE LIKE THIS => SOME PHRASE LIKE THIS

All this was done in the Xlate Testing Tool.

Any assistance would be much appreciated.

Topic

[Tom Rioux]

Hi Vince,

Don’t forget to treat your xlateOutVals as a list as well.  That should get rid of those pesky braces.   Try this.  I like the two line method for better readability:

set obx5 [lindex $xlateInVals 0]

set xlateOutVals

]

Hope this helps…

Tom Rioux

[Vince Angulo]

Thanks Tom, but I didn’t have much success with that approach — got even more braces than expected in the XLT Testing Tool:

Code in my Pre Proc COPY statement:

set mReason

set xlateOutVals

]

Results as follows:

Message 1

L INFLAMTION BEHIND => {{L INFLAMTION BEHIND}}

Message 2

L INFLAMTION BEHIND => {{L INFLAMTION BEHIND}}

Message 3

LEFT PERIORBITAL CELLULITIS => {LEFT PERIORBITAL CELLULITIS}

I didn’t do the lindex per your example, because I need the entire phrase, otherwise I expect I implemented it correctly.  Or, did I?

[Michael Hertel]

How about:

set mReason [join [split [lindex $xlateInVals 0] \] {}]

set xlateOutVals

[Vince Angulo]

Apologies to Tom and thanks to both Tom and Mike.

It turns out both solutions work against my test data.

I just haven’t figured out how the manages to return the whole phrase, when I was only expecting that lindex to only return the first word?  Because it’s not a nested list?

I am humbled and not worthy…

[Michael Hertel]

When all else fails:

echo >$xlateInVals<

[Chris Williams]

Vince,

In response to your last question, $xlateInVals is a list of ALL the items on the source side of the copy. [lindex $xlateInVals 0] is the FIRST of those items, which may itself contain a list. If you only wanted the first word of that first item, you would use [lindex [lindex $xlateInVals 0] 0].

“In Tcl, everything is a list,” even if there is only one element in the list.

Cheers.

[Author]

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