OBX 5 length limitation

[Doug Lundin]

We have a sending system that has an embedded rtf document in OBX.5.  A new receiving system has a limitation of 254 characters in OBX.5.  Is there a way to loop through OBX.5 and pull out 254 characters at a time and create multiple OBX segments on the output.

Topic

[Jim Kosloskey]

Doug,

Yes this can be done in an Xlate.

You will need some Tcl to do the count of the number of characters in the inbound OBX-5 and one to get the piece of the inbound OBX-5 you want.

Other than that the rest can be done with normal Xlate Actions.

Be sure to make sure the receiving system does not ccare if the OBX-5 chunk you give them ends mid word or mid phrase. If that is an issue, more Tcl code will probably be warranted.

I have 2 procs that give you the character length of a field and another that pluckes a portion of a field. These are the 2 Tcl procs of which I spoke. If you want them just email me and I will send them on.

If you are not using an Xlate then you will need to do it all in Tcl.

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

[Doug Lundin]

Within OBX.5 in the rtf document are braces and back slashes. Will your routine(s) handle this?  If so that would be great.

Thanks,

Doug

[Jim Kosloskey]

Doug,

If the OBX-5 is RTF, is the Data Type (OBX-2) ED?

Also is the RTF component (assuming ED Data Type here) encoded (most of the time that would be Base-64)?

If not then you quite likely will have issues inside the Xlate as the potential is there for the RTF un-encoded to contain characters from the MSH-1 or MSH-2 fields which is a n-no (the reason the ED Data Type standard exists).

As for my Tcl procs, they have not been used with encoded data (let’s say base-64) but testing should be easy enough.

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

[Jonathan Christian]

Hey Jim –

I hate resurrecting old threads like this, but I’m having a similar challenge, and can’t find anything in the forums as a direct solution.

My particular case stems from a need to break up an OBX-5.5 into additional OBX segments if the character length in OBX-5.5 is greater than 200 characters in length. Each accompanying OBX segment would have a 200 character limit on its OBX-5.5 as well. For example, I’d need to break up the following segment:

OBX|11|ED|PDF^PDF||^AP^^Base64^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

Into:

OBX|11|ED|PDF^PDF||^AP^^Base64^JVBERi0xLjMKJeLjz9MNCjEgMCBvYmoKPDwKL0NyZWF0aW9uRGF0ZSAoRDoyMDE1MDcyODA5MDYwNSkKL0NyZWF0b3IgKEFjdHVhdGUpCi9Qcm9kdWNlciAoQWN0dWF0ZSBYTUwgdG8gUERGIENvbnZlcnRlciAxLjApCj4+CmVuZG9iagoyIDAgb2JqCjw8Ci9UeXB

OBX|12|ED|PDF^PDF||^AP^^Base64^1IC9QYWdlCi9NZWRpYUJveCBbIDAgMCA2MTIgNzkyIF0KL0NvbnRlbnRzIDMgMCBSCi9SZXNvdXJjZXMgNCAwIFIKL1BhcmVudCA1IDAgUgo+PgplbmRvYmoKMyAwIG9iago8PAovRmlsdGVyIC9GbGF0ZURlY29kZQovTGVuZ3RoIDYgMCBSCi9MZW5ndGgxIDE3Mj

OBX|13|ED|PDF^PDF||^AP^^Base64^k2IAo+PgpzdHJlYW0KeJztXOtv2zgS/+6/gsABhwRoZJF6F4sD2jx6WSSpm2T3sNjsB8VmbN3q4ZXk5LJ//c2Q1NNyJDvZbFq0RRs/yHnxN8PhaBhKfhxRosPfA/zheIxMo9EfI/zEpkzTdYofip8pH/2HxPDlx2vxva6ZnqsbHknno/EJJS65vquIWYalwVzH0myTX

Would you mind elaborating on how you’d accomplish this in an XLATE?

Thanks, as always, for all of your help!

[Keith McLeod]

Jon

Sent an email with some more detail.  I have attached an xlate that may prove to be useful for this purpose.

[Author]

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