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Getting Strange Sequences Like \F\ in MSH Type Fields

This is quite a common problem that occurs in two typical instances:

• The message definition file has regular expressions being used to parse messages, and
• The identity of the message has been incorrectly input as ADT^A01 etc. into one field

	Although the solutions are similar for both problems, this section shows you how to resolve the first problem only.

An example of the first problem would be an Message Identity like this:

This results in Field 9 of the MSH Segment being generated as follows: |ADT^A01\F\A04\F\A08|. Chameleon is using the HL7 escaping convention to translate the | characters to \F\ characters.

Testing the HL7 Escaping Convention

	Download this test VMD to test the HL7 Escaping Convention.

To test the HL7 escaping convention:

• Click the Transform button on the toolbar. The Transformation window appears.
• Copy the following message:

MSH|^~\&||.|||199908180016||ADT^A01|A04|A08|ADT.1.1698593|P|2.1
PID|1||000395122||LEVERKUHN^ADRIAN^C^^^||19880517180606|M|^^^^^||6 66TH AVE NE^^WEIMAR^DL^98052||(157)983-3296|||S||12354768|87654321
NK1|1|TALLIS^THOMAS^C|GRANDFATHER|12914 SPEM ST^^ALIUM^IN^98052|(157)883-6176
NK1|2|WEBERN^ANTON|SON|12 STRASSE MUSIK^^VIENNA^AUS^11212|(123)456-7890
PV1|1|E|EMG-W^^|1||||||||||ER||||ER||H|||||||||||||||||||OVL||REG|||199908180015
GT1|1||SMITH^JAMES^M||12914 164TH AVE NE^^RICHMOND^ON^98052|(157)883-6176|||||F|535-52-9776||||WEISS JENSON|.^^WELLINGTON^ON^.|(206)340-9577 
IN1|1|PRE2||LIFE PRUDENT BUYER|PO BOX 23523^WELLINGTON^ON^98111|||19601||||||||THOMAS^JAMES^M|F|||||||||||||||||||ZKA535529776

• Paste the message into the top pane of the Transformation window.

Testing the HL7 Escaping Convention

You will immediately notice that the message identity appears as follows: |ADT^A01\F\A04\F\A08|. The solution is to use a message definition file intended for generating messages, not message parsing.

To fix this problem, you would just need to ensure that your Message Identity is set up so that each message identifier has one value each. Regular expressions should not be used to identify messages. Using the above example it would be good to pick ADT and one of the following: A01, A04 or A08.

Fixed Message ID