TDS properties for embedded simple type dateTime types

The TDS properties described here apply to:

Field identification

Property Type Meaning
Tag String Specify the value that is used to identify the object in a message bit stream.

If the object is simple and the Data Element Separation property of the complex type or types in which the object is a child is Tagged Delimited, Tagged Fixed Length, or Tagged Encoded Length, this property must contain a non-empty value.

If the object is a complex element and the Data Element Separation property of its parent is Tagged Delimited, Tagged Fixed Length, or Tagged Encoded Length, the property can contain an empty value.

The value for this property must be unique for every element in the message set; that is, no two elements in the message set can contain the same value for this property.

Data Pattern String Specify the regular expression that is to be used by the parser to identify the data in the message to be assigned to the object. This property is used when the Data Element Separation method has been set to Use Data Pattern in the complex type. See Regular expression syntax for further details.
Repeating Element Delimiter String Specify the delimiter that is to be used between repeating elements.

This delimiter is used only when the element repeats and the Data Element Separation of the parent group or complex type is set to All Elements Delimited or Variable Length Elements Delimited.

A default value is provided if the above conditions are true as follows:

  • If the messaging standard is HL7, the mnemonic <HL7_RS> is used.
  • If the messaging standard is not HL7, and the maximum number of repeats is fixed, the delimiter of the parent group or complex type is used.

If none of the above rules are met, a default is not applied.

Physical representation

Property Type Meaning
Physical Type Enumerated type The Physical Type can be set to Characters and Messaging Standard Alternate. This property tells the TDS parser whether the data in the message is the normal TDS character format, or is another alternate form that has a specific messaging standard such as TLOG. The available values and the default value depend on both Messaging Standard and the logical type.

If the logical type of the object is dateTime, float, or integer, this property is disabled.

If the Messaging Standard property (at the message set level) is set to other than TLOG , the Physical Type property is disabled.

If the Messaging Standard property (at the message set level) is set to TLOG and the logical type of the object is set to a Boolean, decimal or string type, the Physical Type property can be set to Characters or Messaging Standard Alternate.

Length Integer Specify the expected length of the object in characters (except in the case of binary objects, in which case the length value represents the length in bytes).

This property applies to simple objects and to complex elements with a base type.

If you give this property a value of 0, the Length Reference property is checked for a value.

If you set the Data Element Separator property for the type to Fixed Length or Fixed Length AL3, either this property, or the Length Reference property, must contain a value that is not 0 or NULL.

Justification Enumerated type

Specify the justification of the object where the data being written or parsed is less than the fixed length value. This property is only used when a value is output as a fixed length string.

Select one of the following values from the drop-down list:

  • Not Applicable
  • Left Justify
  • Right Justify
Padding Character String Specify the padding character that is to be inserted or interpreted on the writing or parsing of a fixed length object where the data is less than the fixed length value. This property is only used when a value is output as a fixed length string.

Set this character in one of the following ways:

  • Select NUL, '0', or SPACE from the drop-down list.
  • Enter a character between quotes, for example "c" or 'c', where c is any alphanumeric character.
  • Enter a hexadecimal character code in the form 0xYY, where YY is a hexadecimal value.
  • Enter a Unicode value in the form U+xxxx, where xxxx is a Unicode value specified in hexadecimal. The maximum length of the string that you can enter is 10.

The choice of which of these padding character forms is used for an MRM element depends on the padding character required and whether the padding character is to be subject to data conversion.

In most cases, the specification of a padding character is sufficient, and when this padding character is used, it is converted to the target code page of the output MRM message that is being generated.

If a padding character is required that cannot easily be entered in the padding character field, the Unicode mnemonic format can be used to specify the required character. When used, this Unicode value is also converted to the target code page of the MRM message that is being generated.

If a padding character is required that is not subject to data conversion, the hexadecimal format can be used. This gives the option of specifying a padding character that is inserted directly into the output message. If this format is used, you must ensure that this hexadecimal value is valid for the code page of any output messages that are created using these MRM definitions.

If you are converting a message from one code page to another, you must ensure that the converted value of the padding character is valid for this code page. For example, when converting from ASCII to code page 500, if you have specified the numeric 8 as your padding character, this is converted from 0x08 to 0x15, the ASCII and EBCDIC representations of 'back space'.

There is a currently a restriction that the value of your padding character must not be greater than U+007F. Note that if you enter a Unicode mnemonic or numeric value, it is considered to be the character that is represented by that number in UTF-8.

DateTime Format String Specify a template for date and time.

The default DateTime format is dependent on the logical type of the object. For information on the defaults for the dateTime format according to the logical type see DateTime defaults by logical type.

See DateTime formats for details of date and time formats.

Length Reference Enumerated type Specify the identifier of a sibling Integer object, the value of which dictates the length of the object in question. The sibling object must be defined before the current object within the message structure.

For information about reordering elements, see Reordering objects.

Representation of null values

Property Type Meaning
Encoding Null Enumerated type Select one of the following options from the drop-down list. The option that you select determines the value that you must set for the property Encoding Null Value:
  • NULLPadFill. This is valid only for fixed length objects. This is the default value.
  • NULLLogicalValue. The Encoding Null Value property is first converted to an actual value, and rendered in the way specified for the field.
  • NULLLiteralValue. This specifies that Encoding Null Value contains a value that is directly substituted as if it is a string. For dateTime elements, use this option if you want to use the Encoding Null Value to test or compare the content of the field in the message.

For full information about using these options, see TDS Null handling options.

Encoding Null Value String The use of this property depends on the Encoding Null property, described above. The default value is zero.

If you set the Encoding Null property for a dateTime object to NULLLogicalValue, you must set this property to an ISO8601 dateTime format.

These formats are described in DateTime as string data.

For example, specify a value conforming to yyyy-MM-dd'T'HH:mm:ss such as 1970-12-01.

Related concepts
Message modeling
The message model
TDS format: Relationship to the logical model
Related tasks
Developing message models
Working with message model objects
Related reference
Message model reference information
Message model object properties
Deprecated message model object properties
Embedded simple type properties
Embedded simple type TDS properties