PID.3 Reformat Using XlateInList

[Johnny Anderson]

CL v5.5, Sun, Solaris 10.

I need to reformat the repeating PID.3 fields of an input VXU.  Details are in the attachments.

I added a CALL action with a tcl proc, see screen 1.  I get

Topic

[Jim Kosloskey]

Johhny,

I think this:

   set

[Jim Kosloskey]

Johnny,

Besides the chage I suggested don’t you want to use xlateInVals instead of xlateInList?

email: jim.kosloskey@jim-kosloskey.com 30+ years Cloverleaf, 61 years IT – old fart.

[Johnny Anderson]

I tried $xlateInList and got the below attachment.

I forgot to mention that I have done my research using the forum, user manuals, and web sites but

I can

[Jim Kosloskey]

Johnny,

xlateInList and xlate OutList are lists of the names of the elements you placed in the Source and Destination containers of the Xlate Action repsectively.

For example if you had a COPy with:

Source @myvar

Destination @yourvar

Then xlateInList would contain “@myvar” and xlateOutList would contain “@yourvar”. Not the data values for those names just the names.

xlateInVals and xlateOutvals contain the actual data for the Source and Destination elements respectively.

So for example if @myvar had the value of “123” and the same COPY

The XlateInList would have the value “@myvar” and xlateOInVals would have the value “123”

each of those (xlateInList and xlateInVals) are lists which in this case have one lement each.

So to find out the Type in PID-3.4 you would need to look at xlateInVals.

Again, if you were to ITERATE over the PID-3 field and inside that ITERATE check the value of PID-3.4 for the values you are looking for using an IF with ELSE I think you could accomplish what you want without Tcl.

email: jim.kosloskey@jim-kosloskey.com 30+ years Cloverleaf, 61 years IT – old fart.

[Johnny Anderson]

Thanks Jim.  Okay, I

[Johnny Anderson]

I

[Jim Kosloskey]

Johnny,

Your incr should be like this:

incr pid3NbrLoc 2

instead of:

incr $pid3NbrLoc 2

Note the removal of the $.

email: jim.kosloskey@jim-kosloskey.com 30+ years Cloverleaf, 61 years IT – old fart.

[Johnny Anderson]

Thanks Jim for the incr fix.   I thought you define a variable with no $ and then after that you use $.  Are there

exceptions to that?  I have a new error message: invalid command name “elseif”.  I added an IF stmt to check for

null fields and got the error msg.  I

[Levy Lazarre]

Johnny,

There are two ways to access a variable in Tcl, by value and by reference. If you only need the value of the variable, you access it using the $ character (variable substitution). However, if you need to modify the variable in place, you access it by reference, using the variable’s name, without any $ character. This is the equivalent of using a pointer in the C language.

There are Tcl commands that need to modify the variable in place, so they call the variable’s name, not the value.

‘inc’ is one of these commands that directly access the variable. So if you define a variable named myvar and you want to increment it by 2, you go like this:

set myvar 10

incr myvar 2   ;# you get a syntax error with incr $myvar

Other commands like this are: append, lappend, array. If you look up a command’s syntax, Tcl will let you know if the command requires a variable’s name instead of the value:

“incr varName ?increment?”  

“append varName ?value value …?”

“lappend varName ?value value …?”

As for the error with the “elseif”, it is happening because you have inserted a blank line between the end of the “if” statement and the beginning of the “elseif”. It has to do with the way Tcl parses the control structure. A newline is treated in Tcl as a command separator. So it makes it appear to Tcl that the “elseif” is a command, instead of a clause belonging to the “if” statement. You just need to move up all your “elseif” clauses like this:

if {$pid3Type eq “”} { ;#  null – skip it

           echo “### Null – skip it”

           incr pid3NbrLoc 2

           incr pid3TypeLoc 2

           continue

       } elseif {$pid3Type eq “SR”} { ;#  SR – Patient Nbr

           set $demPat $pid3Nbr

           echo “### SR demPat: ” $demPat

           incr pid3NbrLoc 2

           incr pid3TypeLoc 2

           continue

       }

Finally, a simple “return” statement should break you out of a procedure.

I hope this helps.

[Johnny Anderson]

Thanks for the info Levy.  I’ll make those changes.

[Johnny Anderson]

Thanks Levy, those changes worked except the

[Jim Kosloskey]

Johnny,

As far as I know you only option is to use xpmerror to throw an error then select the desired error action in the COPY Action (the Error: pull down which defaults to skip).

The options are: skip (which skips this ACTION); pad (which pads the field with what is in Default I think; or error which immediately sends the message to the Error DB and moves to the next message.

I guess another option is to set a temp variable in your proc that you test after the COPY and if the temp variable indicates an error has occurred, do a SUPPRESS Action which will kill the message but you would not know it has happened unless you put something in the log and are constantly monitoring the log.

email: jim.kosloskey@jim-kosloskey.com 30+ years Cloverleaf, 61 years IT – old fart.

[Levy Lazarre]

Johnny,

The correct command to terminate the loop immediately inside the “else” clause is “break”.

However, I entirely agree with Jim’s comments. What you are trying to achieve is not possible within the Tcl fragment. Remember that the Tcl proc is called by the Xlate. When it ends, it has to return control to the CALLER (the Xlate). The only control you have is what the Tcl returns to its caller. This agrees with Jim’s suggestion of setting a temporary variable within the ‘else’ clause. The Xlate can then evaluate the value of this variable and issue a “SUPPRESS” when it’s necessary to abort.

I do not quite understand your business needs and I am wondering if you are running the translation on the batch as a whole or if you have split the batch in invididual messages before sending them to translation. If they were split. everything could be done by iterating inside the Xlate as Jim mentioned, and no Tcl would be necessary.

[Johnny Anderson]

Thanks Jim and Levy.  I changed my mind about the abort idea.  Now I prefer to skip the message and continue with the next one.  

I

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