Testing for number vs alpha

[Tom Arrowsmith]

I need to determine if the PV1-7.1 has a physician ID number as opposed to a physician name. I realize that even if a number is present, it may be in the “text” format.

Is there a bit of tcl code I can call from the xlate that would accomplish this for me? for example, distinguish between the value “123” as opposed to the value “SMITH”?

If I see the value to be a text name, I want to instead insert the ID “1” (which stands for “Doctor, NotOnFile”)

Or is there another way to accomplish this?

Would prefer a some tcl code that can be called from the xlate – as I am not a very accomplished tcl programmer.

Thanks!

Tom

Topic

[Paul Bishop]

you can do this with an inline tcl fragment:

---

lassign $xlateInVals docIn

if {[string is digit -strict $docIn]} {

  set docOut $docIn

} else {

  set docOUt “1”

}

set xlateOutVals

---

the Source would be your PV1-7.1 field, and Destination would be whatever you are moving to.  The “-strict” will cause empty fields to test false.

Paul Bishop
Carle Foundation Hospital
Urbana, IL

[Gene Salay]

Tom,

Most systems will be consistent and always put the ID in PV1-7.1 and the name in PV1-7.2

That aside, if you’re trying to determine if a field is numeric or alpha, you can use the tcl command “string is…”.

In Xlate, you could do something like this:

set inFld [lindex $xlateInVals 0]

set outFld $inFld

if [string is alpha $inFld] {set outFld 1}

set xlateOutVals

Try this site for a quick reference on TCL:

http://www.tcl.tk/man/tcl8.4/TclCmd.

[Paul Bishop]

I hit submit too soon – the “set docOUt $docIn” should be “set docOut $docIn”.

Paul Bishop
Carle Foundation Hospital
Urbana, IL

[Jeff Dinsmore]

Gene – testing for digit with the -strict option is the better way to go.

If the tested string has any non-alpha characters – like “abc1def”, “string is alpha” will test false – effectively causing it to be treated as an integer.

Jeff Dinsmore
Chesapeake Regional Healthcare

[Author]

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