When you are working with any of our batch analyzer objects (File, String, or Data) we provide you with the following properties which you can use to measure the performance of each operation. Use LastOperationTS() to get the System.TimeSpan object and display or log TotalSeconds, TotalMilliseconds, etc.

Individual Properties & Methods Dealing with Control Characters:

When a HL7DataAnalyzer is created it will inherit a HL7EncodingCharacters object which it keeps internally. The object provides the following public access to the individual properties and methods it needs to function.

      private COREUtilities MyUtilities = new COREUtilities();

      private HL7Controller oController = new HL7Controller(LPInternals.ACTIVATIONHANDLE);

      private void DemoDataAnalyzer1()

       {

          //msgs10 is loaded from the program resources where I have stored a default

          //HL7 data file with 10 HL7 Messages

          string msgs10 = COREAPIExample3.Properties.Resources.AdHocDemoMessages10;

           HL7DataAnalyzer a1 = oController.NewDataAnalyzer();

          if (a1.HasException)

           {

              //something went wrong

               FormResults.ErrorMsgBox(a1.LastException.ExtendedErrorMessage);

              return;

           }

          int msgCount = a1.MessageCount;

          //a1 == 0

          if (!a1.LoadHL7String(msgs10))

           {

              //something went wrong

               FormResults.ErrorMsgBox(a1.LastException.ExtendedErrorMessage);

              //I don't technically have to call Clear here but

              //Best practices says that I should

               a1.Clear();

              return;

           }

           msgCount = a1.MessageCount;

          //a1 == 10

           HL7Message msg = a1.GetHL7Message(1);

           RTF1.Text = msg.Value;

           a1.Clear();

          //Now we use the file system interface

          string file3Megs = "C:\\HL7 Messages\\3MegFile.hl7";

          string file5Megs = "C:\\HL7 Messages\\5MegFile.hl7";

          //file3Megs is a 3 megabyte data file with hl7 messages

          //file5Megs is a 5 megabyte data file with hl7 messages

          //We will reset the maximum string capacity to 4 megabytes

           a1.ResetMaximumStringCapacity(4);

          //Now a1 will pass any file 4 mb or smaller to the String Analyer

          //and any file > 4 mb to the File Analyzer

          //And we are off. When I load the 3 mb file the Data Analyzer

          //will use a HL7StringAnalyzer to parse it.

          if (!a1.LoadHL7String(file3Megs))

           {

              //Something went wrong

               FormResults.ErrorMsgBox(a1.LastException.ExtendedErrorMessage);

               a1.Clear();

              return;

           }

          double milliseconds = a1.LastOperationTS().TotalMilliseconds;

           FormResults.InfoBox("Operation took: " + milliseconds.ToString(), "String Analysis 3 MB");

          //And I can iterate through messages

          for (int i = 1; i <= a1.MessageCount; i++)

           {

               HL7Message oMsg = a1.GetHL7Message(i);

              /*

                * ...code

                * ...code

                * ...code

                */

           }

          //Now I can immediately analyze the 2nd file. Don't have to clear the object

          //because it will do this internally.

          //When I load the 5 mb file the Data Analyzer

          //will use a HL7FileAnalyzer to parse it.

          if (!a1.LoadHL7File(file5Megs))

           {

              //Something went wrong

               FormResults.ErrorMsgBox(a1.LastException.ExtendedErrorMessage);

               a1.Clear();

              return;

           }

           milliseconds = a1.LastOperationTS().TotalMilliseconds;

           FormResults.InfoBox("Operation took: " + milliseconds.ToString(), "Data File Analysis 5 MB");

          //And I can iterate through messages

          for (int i = 1; i <= a1.MessageCount; i++)

           {

               HL7Message oMsg = a1.GetHL7Message(i);

              /*

                * ...code

                * ...code

                * ...code

                */

           }

          //And finally Clear the object.

           a1.Clear();

          return;

       }

In all software development the biggest hurdle ALWAYS is handling exceptions and error trapping. If you have looked at any of our objects we go to great lengths to make sure that we don't intentionally (or unintentionally) cause a dreaded System Exception to be thrown in our code by implementing our standard exception handling interface across all objects. If you try and retrieve a HL7Segment object from a HL7Message object and it returns null, there will be the LastException property to provide error context as to what happened and why you got a null back. This means that when working with any of our HL7 Analyzers, or other object creators your software developers always have to remember to write the same check for null, check for error, handle error subroutines all the time.

What we propose is that you try a different iterator with our HL7 Analyzers, use GetMessageEX() instead to iterate through the HL7 Messages contained in the object instead of the usual GetMessage() or GetRawHl7() methods. Using this method forces (or tries to force) the software developer into good error checking practices because the method doesn't return a HL7 message, it returns a COREExceptionEX object instead. Normal programming ideology would say "Get the Object, Check for null, If null, Check for error and handle", doing it this way reshuffles that paradigm, using this methodology you START with the error handling and only if there is no error do you dig out the expected result which is embedded in the Tag property (a CORETag object) of the COREExceptionEX, see the example code below.

Example Code (C#)

Some other major advantages of using this method.

•It will NEVER throw a system exception unless the calling analyzer object is not valid.

•It will NEVER return null. You will always get a valid COREExceptionEX object back when you call this method.

•Even if there is something fundamentally wrong internally which kept the HL7 message from being created you can STILL get the Raw HL7 string.

•If there is no error (IE myExceptionEX.HasException() == false) then you will have:

oThe HL7Message object WILL be in the myExceptionEX.Tag.Tag1 property. Tag1 is a generic object so you will have to CAST it as a HL7Message object

oThe Raw HL7 string value WILL be in the myExceptionEX.Tag.StringValue property.