xlate string range help

[Nora Katz]

I wanted to limit a OBR field to 29 characters, so I have the following xlate pre-proc

lassign $xlateInVals input

echo $input

set xlateOutVals [string range $input 0 28]

echo $xlateOutVals

But, if the input is Urine Macroscopic I get back Urine and if the input is C-Reactive Protein I get back C-Reactive in the Testing Tool.  The echo lines look like the output I want.

The space in the name appear to be the problem.  Is this just a problem with the testing tool or is my tcl incorrect?

Topic

[Jim Kosloskey]

Nora,

The arguments you receive when invoked by Xlate are lists (with the exception of xlateId).

You need to treat them as such Including the argument(s) you return.

Jim Kosloskey

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

[Max Drown (Infor)]

When you echo a list, tcl will print out the whole list giving the impression that the WHOLE list is a single element of the list.

Code:

tcl>set tmp [list blah blah blah]
tcl>echo $tmp
blah blah blah
tcl>echo [lindex $tmp 1]
blah
tcl>

When you return values, you have to make sure that you return a string as a single element.

Try something like this:

Code:

set newString [string range $input 0 28]
set xlateOutVals [list “$newString”]

-- Max Drown (Infor)

[Michael Lacriola]

Why use a xlate? Modify the variant for the OBR field to be 29 in length. Simple.

[Jim Kosloskey]

The variant might be a shared use variant and/or the field could be one of the fields used in multiple segments.

Not all uses may want the length changed.

Jim Kosloskey

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

[Nora Katz]

Thank you all for the responses.  Yes, we did consider changing the length of the field, but we have many interfaces, and as we build interfaces in the future, we did not want to limit all interfaces to this length limitation that only one receiving system needed at this time.

Jim provided me with a reusable tcl proc that worked great!

Thanks again.

[Author]

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