Iteration from OBX|2| to NTE|1|…

[Gena Gill]

I need to set up a translation where I need to keep OBX|1| exactly like it is, but for each iteration of OBX starting with the 2nd iteration, I need to copy each iteration into an iteration of NTE starting with iteration 1.  Like this:

OBX|1| –> OBX|1|

OBX|2| –> NTE|1|

OBX|3| –> NTE|2|

In the end, there should only be 1 iteration of OBX in the message, and then multiple iterations of the NTE segment that follows.

Any ideas?

Topic

[Mike Grieger]

Question – do you have to be concerned with any NTEs under your OBXs?  ie – OBX-2 has NTEs under it, so you need to make OBX-2 into NTE-1, but then keep the existing NTEs as well?

If not, it should be fairly easy to accomplish.  One method you could use is as follow: establish an iteration of the group/segment (whatever you are iterating on). In that iterate, do an IF, and evaluate your iteration variable to see if it is zero (first iteration).  (ex. IF $%s1 eq =0) – note the $ in front of variable.  under that IF, copy your fields to their OBX output.  under ELSE, copy your fields to NTE.  you can set up another variable to use, and have it equal to the math expression of your iteration value minus 1, so that your NTE copy basis starts with zero.  (ie, on OBX-2, the iteration variable is at 1 since it is zero based, so you want to subtract 1 from it so the NTE basis is one less than the current OBX you are on).  And if you want to use NTE-2 numbering, that should equal your current OBX iteration variable also.

Now, if you also have NTEs that can be present under your OBXs, that complicates things a bit.  Still doable, but more complex.  I won’t get into that at this point.

[Gena Gill]

Thanks!  There will be no NTE’s in the original message.  I had a complete mental block and didn’t even think of using IF and ELSE to take care of this.

[Author]

Replies