>>>>How flexible do you want to make this?
>>>>
>>>>Will you be parsing all the HIPAA transactions?
>>>
>>>I will probably add a column for the 271, 270, etc to make it more flexible for the future, but for the moment I'm just looking to work through the 271.
>>
>>We normalized our tables because we parse most of the transactions.
>>
>>You might consider adding a Pre-assignment hook column (memo). That allows a totally table-driven solution.
>
>Could you explain that a bit more? How would that work, and why a memo field?

We used a memo so we could enter an arbitrary number of lines of code. It was written in VFP 6.0, so we used macro to call code line by line. We used it to append a blank record in the database when we hit a certain segment, commit a transaction, etc

Some pseudocode:

Do while not EOF
Parse segment from file
Parse element from segment
Convert element to correct type
Execute pre-assignment hook code (if any)
Save element data to view or form property


There are several potential gotchas with EDI. If you accept transactions from multiple sources be aware that not all sources use *:~ as seperators. See doc on ISA segment

EDI doesn't really have lines. Most of the files we process are one long string.

I apologize if you know this stuff. I've seen it bite others just getting started in this arena.

HTH

Bruce