|
[EDI-L Mailing List Archive Home]
[Message List]
[Reply To This Message]
RE: Files are Flat?
Personally, I have to agree with Rachel and differentiate "Flat Files" from
EDI - as more a matter of definition/terminology/perspective than anything.
...Like HIPAA itself, it can truely be a "point of view thing" - and very
difficult to come to consensus on.
Since working with data back in the COBOL days, I have come to think of Flat
files as structured, fixed length. Flat files can carry a lot of "White
Space", where EDI does not. I think many people confuse 'ASCII' with their
perspective, but I see EDI as anything but Flat.
The very thing that makes a file "Flat" IMHO, is the Structured nature of
it.
Character - most often "Comma" Separated Variable - "CSV" Files are not
really "Flat", and are similar to EDI. Separated by a given delimeter, and
are compact, but generally do not have the variable hierarchy EDI does.
XML is just another format, and it has its place. Just about any (non
dinosaur) programmer can code to it. But see few save for the genious level
or workaholic, that can relate it to EDI. :-)
I have not often seen it succeed as easliy as implied in Healthcare. Not
without a Translator/Mapper - save for some very limited applications (One
or two Trading Partners - LOTS of 'constant' Segment strings). The XML data
files often are HUGE. From what I have seen, XSLT is far too inflexible to
work well - especially with HIPAA.
My $.02 on it.
- not saying I am right or wrong, just stating how I have come to
differentiate "files" for communication - Flat, CSV, XML, EDI ... Databases
fall into their own category (not files at all).
Mary
Axiom Systems, Inc.
|
 |
Subscribe in XML format
| RSS 2.0 |
|
| Atom 0.3 |
|
|
Cart
