using TABLE LOOKUP to send labs

[Duy Nguyen]

We have an interface set up with a  lab vendor and we only want to send these labs to physicians who want to receive them.  

I have created a TABLE called _LABS_allow.tbl

The IN values are the names/codes of the doctors who want to receive.

The OUT values I have labeled as “CONTINUE”

My default value is “KILL”

My question is…within the xlate, after I place a table in and go into the PROPERTIES, on the source I choose OBR-16 (which is the ordering provider’s name), what should i set the destination to be?

I have thought about setting the destination to a temporary variable called @DISP    for disposition

and then following up by using an IF statement:   IF @DISP eq =KILL, then suppress the message.  

Would this method be valid?  Are there easier ways of doing this?  I know this is not the most efficient/ideal and I’m interested in doing this before the XLATE but in a SIMPLE way.  Thanks in advance.

Topic

[Charlie Bursell]

You certainly don’t want to do it in Xlate!  Kill it before Xlate!

Write a Tcl proc.  In the Tcl proc, extract the name from the message and then bump that against the table using the command:

    set var [tbllookup ]

if var = KILL, kill the message, else continue it.

The proc could be placed in the Inbound or in a route.

FWIW, if this is to be a dynamc table that changes often, there are better methods than using a Cloverleaf Table.  For example, you could have someone maintain the table as an Excel Spreadsheet and then, when it changes, save it as a Comma Separated Value (CSV) file.

Lot’s of options  😀

[Gary Atkinson]

Do you have to store the .csv file in the tables directory with the cloverleaf tables?

[Charlie Bursell]

No.  Access like any file.  Use the csv package available with tcllib

[Duy Nguyen]

I decided to go the TCL route and found some existing code that I will borrow…why reinvent the wheel, right?

There is, however, one line of code (in green highlight) that I do not understand what it’s trying to do, would you assist me in explaining what it does?

[Robert Weisser]

The following line:

Code:

if {![string length $disp]} {set disp KILL}

means:  if the length of $disp is 0, set disp to KILL.

[Charlie Bursell]

Kind of wierd but I guess it will work if your table is setup OK.

It looks like whoever wrote this expects the table to return a message disposition, i.e., KILL, CONTINUE, etc.  However, if it returns an empty string set it to KILL.  If the empty string is returned, the string length will be 0,

I assume your table is setup to send CONTINUE if a match is found and KILL (defualt) if not found.  In that case both of the statements below are superflous:

   set disp CONTINUE

   if {![string length $disp]} {set disp KILL}

I would however put the tbllookup command inside of a catch statement just in case.  For example:

       if {[catch [tbllookup Quest_ALLOW $obr16} disp]} {

                echo  nError during Table Lookup table Quest_ALLOW

                echo $disp

                msgmetaset $mh USERDATA “$disp”

                return “{ERROR $mh}”

        }

Of course you would cahnge the error message(s) to suit your own needs.

FWIW:  hcitbllookup and tbllookup are the same.

[Duy Nguyen]

Charlie Bursell wrote:

Kind of wierd but I guess it will work if your table is setup OK.

It looks like whoever wrote this expects the table to return a message disposition, i.e., KILL, CONTINUE, etc.

[Charlie Bursell]

It would depend on how your table is setup.  If your table retrns CONTINUE if found an KILL if not found then #3 is superflous.

[Duy Nguyen]

Charlie Bursell wrote:

It would depend on how your table is setup.

[Michael Hertel]

Correct me if I’m wrong, but wasn’t there a time (maybe a hundred years ago) when the tbllookup command (or maybe Xlate tbllookup function) did not return the default value and returned null when a match was not made?

[Charlie Bursell]

As far as I know the tbllookup command whether from Tcl or Xlate has not changed since the beginning.  If you do not define a default, the empty string is used.

We have been trying to get it change so that the default could be a meta-character that would cause the lookup string to be returned.

[Author]

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