>>>When creating a data dictionary, would you include code at the record level to transform/convert the field value from the 1st table to the format needed for the 2nd table? It sounds logical to me, but I haven't seen anything quite like it before and wondered if it made sense. So, if a date came in as "20070101" the dictionary would have an algorithm in a field on that record to convert it to [2007^01/01] before populating the 2nd table. Just curious before I begin coding for it... Thanks!
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>>I did that once, for a conversion routine - I made a mapping dictionary, with all the code in it. At runtime, I'd pick snippets from there (not all fields were there each time, so I had to pick), put them together in a .prg, pass the engine as a parameter (the engine was an isntance of a class which had all the needed routines as methods), and each snippet accepted that parameter (it was one huge with oThis... endwith block).
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>>Accidentally, it was also medical administrative software - not HL7, though, it was ERAS.
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>I think my time is ruuning short on this project, so I think I'll just macro expand the snippet to convert the format if it exists. I like your idea, but I don't think I have time to build that. Good to know that I was at least on track somewhat. Thanks!

If you have the snippets, just add them to a common .prg, compile it and DO it. Simple as that. Should be a tad faster than running them as macros, because they won't get recompiled for each record.