Tutorial Scenario

In a typical real-world scenario, let's assume that you are receiving one data stream arriving over a network from ACME Medical. Your application is interested in some or all of the data encoded in the messages. However, your interface requirements have now changed. Your interface is now expected to handle two data streams from two different hospitals: (1) Acme Medical and (2) Another hospital called Magic Health Systems. The two types of messages you expect to receive are as follows:

MSH|^~\&|TPS||Acme||20010817100616||SIU^S12|5C31FEB1-AFBC-401d-9990-438FD7B8D482|P|2.3|||AL|AL
SCH||1058|||CARDI2||DEF
PID|||9300080|824210432|GOMEZ^AMALIA^SANCHEZ||19550512|F|||CL NUÑEZ ARENAS 17 3 B,.^^Mostoles^^28112^E||6964526||||||987908709872|324123424|||^^^|||||||no
PV1||O|4621|DEF^|||33^LLANO^JOSE A.^MOLINERO|||CARCEX|||||||||1058|||||||||||||||||||||||||200107121310|200107121315
AIG||||||||19000101000000|||0|min

SIU-S12 Message

MSH|^~\&|GUID|Magic|Radiology||20010817100616||ORM^O01|5C31FEB1-AFBC-401d-9990-438FD7B8D482|P|2.2|
EVN|O01|
PID|||9300080|824210432|GUTIERREZ^THOMAS^TYLER||19550512|F|||CL NU\XD1\EZ ARENAS 17 3 B,.^^^^28112^E||6964526||||||987908709872|
PV1||O|4621||||33^LLANO^JOSE A.|||CARCEX|||||||||1058|

ORM-O01 Message

Your interface has already been successfully handling SIU^S12 messages, so the goal is to parse two message types, instead of one. As you can tell from the above messages, the segment grammars are slightly different. How would you handle the two different data steams? The table below explains how you could handle this type of scenario, along with their advantages and disadvantages:

Option	Explanation	Advantages	Disadvantages
1	You could create two VMD files, which contain two different segment grammars but utilize the same tables.	Very straightforward and easy to create two separate VMD files with different purposes. Since you would also not be modifying the tables, table grammar and messages, you would not have to regenerate the stubcode.	You would have to manually copy tables and would have to maintain two separate VMDs.
2	You could create one VMD file with two different messages.	You would only have to create one VMD file. This would be very easy to initially set up.	You would have to regenerate your stubcode since you would be adding a message. This would also increase the amount of stubcode when generating your application, increasing your maintenance costs. You would also have to maintain and support two types of messages (or more, if the interface ever evolved and changed over time), instead of supporting only one message type.
3	The best option would be to create a VMD file with multiple configurations with different segment grammar, but utilize the same tables. In addition you would not have to regenerate your stubcode since you would not be modifying your messages, tables or table grammar.	When you generate the application in Chameleon, your application would use the same code but just select the configuration. That would be the only extra code you would have to write.	N/A

This tutorial will show you how to create a new configuration to accommodate the other message.

iNTERFACEWARE™ Inc.

Tutorial Scenario