Data Element Separation |
Enumerated type |
Specify the method used to separate the data elements
within the type. Select one of the following values: - Tagged Delimited.
This value indicates that all elements within the complex type are identified
by a tag, and separated by the value specified in the optional Delimiter property (if specified). You
must set the Tag property
for all child elements of simple type, and you may set the Delimiter property
to a non-empty value. See Global element TDS properties.
You must also set the Tag Data Separator or
the Length of Tag properties.
- Tagged Fixed Length.
This value indicates that each element is identified by a tag, and the data
has a fixed length. There are no delimiters. You must set the Tag property
for each of the child elements of this complex type, and each child element
must have a Length or Length Reference property assigned to
it. You must also set the Tag Data Separator or
the Length of Tag properties.
- Tagged Encoded Length.
This value indicates that all elements within the complex type are separated
by a tag, and a length field follows each tag. There are no delimiters. The
tag can be fixed length, as set by Length
of Tag, or variable length delimited by the Tag
Data Separator. You must also set Length
Of Encoded Length so that the parser knows the size of the length
field, and set Extra Chars in Encoded Length to
tell the parser how many to subtract from the value in Length
Of Encoded Length to get the actual length of data that follows
the length field.
This method provides a more flexible way of handling
ACORD AL3 standard messages than Fixed
Length AL3, by allowing different parts of the messages to
be at different versions of the ACORD AL3 standard.
- All Elements Delimited.
This value indicates that all elements within the complex type are separated
by a delimiter. You must set the value in the Delimiter property.
- Variable Length Elements Delimited.
This value indicates that some of the elements within the complex type might
be of variable length: if they are, they must be delimited by the value specified
in the Delimiter property.
- Use Data Pattern.
This value indicates that the parser determines the elements by matching the
data with the regular expression set in the element or type member Data Pattern property. See Message definition file properties.
- Fixed Length. This
value indicates that all elements within the complex type are fixed length.
The next data element is accessed by adding the value of the Length property
to the offset (see Global element TDS properties). If
you set the Data Element Separation property
of a complex type to Fixed Length,
you must also set the Data Element Separation property
of all complex children of this type to Fixed
Length. Each child element must have a Length or Length Reference property assigned to
it.
- Fixed Length AL3.
This value has a similar meaning to the separation type Fixed
Length, but also indicates to the parser that a number of predefined
rules with regard to missing optional elements, encoded lengths, and versioning
must be applied. If you set the Data Element
Separation property of a complex type to Fixed
Length AL3, you must also set the Data
Element Separation property of all complex children of this type
to Fixed Length AL3.
- Undefined. This
value is set automatically if you set the Type
Composition property of a complex type to Message,
and you cannot change it to any other value.
Do not set the Type Composition property to Empty, Choice, Unordered Set, Ordered
Set, Sequence,
or Simple Unordered Set.
If you do, you will be unable to check in the type.
|
Group Indicator |
String |
Specify the value of a special character or string that
precedes the data belonging to a group or complex type within the bit stream. |
Group Terminator |
String |
Specify the value of a special character or string that
terminates data belonging to a group or a complex type within the bit stream. |
Delimiter |
String |
Specify the value of a special character or string that
specifies the delimiter used between data elements. This property applies
only to the delimited Data Element Separation methods
(Tagged Delimited, All Elements Delimited, and Variable Elements Delimited).
|
Suppress Absent Element Delimiters |
Enumerated type |
Use this property to select if you want delimiters to
be suppressed for elements that are missing within a message. Select from: - End Of Type. Use
this option to suppress the delimiter when an element is missing. For example,
if the model has been defined to have up to 3 elements and only 2 are present,
the last delimiter can be omitted from the message.
- Never. Use this
option to ensure that even if optional elements are not present, all delimiters
will be written out. This option should be used when the delimiter used to
delimit parent and child objects is the same. For example, if an optional
child element is missing, message processing applications could not tell where
the child elements in a message ended and the next parent element started
if the delimiters are all the same.
|
Observe Element Length |
Check box |
Applicable when Data
Element Separation is All
Elements Delimited and tells the TDS parser to take any Length property of child elements or
attributes into account. The default value depends on the setting of the Messaging Standard property (at the message
set level) and Data Element Separation properties.- Where Data Element Separation is All Elements Delimited and the Messaging Standard is set to TLOG , this property should be set.
For all other messaging standards it should not be set.
- Where Data Element Separation is Tagged Delimited this property should
not be set.
- Where Data Element Separation is Tagged Fixed Length, Fixed Length, Fixed
Length AL3, or Variable
Length Elements Delimited this property will be set and is
disabled.
- For all other data element separation methods, this property is not set
and is disabled.
Any other combination will generate a task list warning. |
Tag Data Separator |
Button and String |
Specify the value of a special character or string that
separates the Tag from the data. The Tag
Data Separator and Length
of Tag properties are mutually exclusive. If you set the property Tag Data Separator, it overrides Length of Tag.
This property applies
only to the tagged Data Element Separation methods
(Tagged Delimited, Tagged Fixed Length, and Tagged Encoded Length).
|
Length of Tag |
Integer |
Specify the length of a tag value. When the message
is parsed, this allows tags to be extracted from the bit stream if the Tag Data Separator property is not set. The Tag Data Separator and Length
of Tag properties are mutually exclusive. If you set the property Tag Data Separator, it overrides this
value.
This property applies only to the tagged Data
Element Separation methods (Tagged
Delimited, Tagged Fixed
Length, and Tagged
Encoded Length).
|
Length of Encoded Length |
Integer |
Specifies the number of characters (not bytes) after
a tag that are used for the length field. Enter a value from
0 to 2147483647. You must set this property if you have set Data Element Separation property to Tagged Encoded Length; it is not
valid otherwise.
The actual number of data characters parsed also depends
on the value of the Extra Chars in Encoded
Length property.
|
Extra Chars in Encoded Length |
Integer |
(Only valid if the Data
Element Separation method is set to Tagged
Encoded Length.) Specifies the number of extra characters included
in the value found in the length field. (For example, the value in the length
might include the size of the length field itself as well as the size of the
data field, or it might be the total size of the tag, length, and data fields.) Enter a value from 0 to 2147483647. The parser subtracts this
number from the number found in the length field to get the number of data
characters that follow the length field.
You
must set this property if you have set Data
Element Separation property to Tagged
Encoded Length and the actual number of data characters is
less than the value found in the length field.
|
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.
|
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.
|
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. |